


An Earthquake, A Blizzard and A Storm

by Reshma



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Author Is Annoyingly Bad At Writing, Authority Figures, Betas Are My Saviors, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Extended Metaphors, Father Figure Issues, Father's Day, Father-Son Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I hate myself, I hope, Irondad, Loss of Parent(s), May Parker (Spider-Man) Needs a Hug, Mention of Avengers, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Canon Compliant, Other, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Has Issues, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Please Kill Me, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, References to Depression, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, What Have I Done, Whump, author is projecting, author is trash, spiderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-11 21:32:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17454689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reshma/pseuds/Reshma
Summary: “Why didn't you just tell me? You were supposed to trust me.” Tony's eyes are hard and ablaze with anger but there's something in his voice that just sounds bewildered and just sad; it’s a few gasping breaths away from almost desperate, possibly.Peter scoffs and lets out a humorless laugh, “Yeah, well, we both know how that ended up last time.”------------NOT RELATED TO ENDGAME





	1. The Earthquake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [killerqueenwrites (KillainsTales)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillainsTales/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Hard to Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17337668) by [Gruoch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gruoch/pseuds/Gruoch). 



> Betas are currently KlllerQueenWrites, Benny and Albina  
> Thank you for putting up with my bullshit, lovelies.

It's been three years since Ben died.

Ben's death is an earthquake in their life. More so, the damage it leaves behind is what fuels May's hatred towards the world and it's bullshit. The aftermath of this metaphorical earthquake is what plummets May into her current overbearing state.

Immediately, they deal with financial issues, May runs more double shifts, reroutes her entire schedule for Peter's extracurriculars and they live life frugally for a while. Money is tight and government assistance doesn't come easy for a nurse. Peter's socks have holes in them and there are days all May can afford for lunch is tomato soup from the hospital cafeteria. She fears that she looks as think as some of the anemic children CPS brings in to her ward.

Peter is her anchor. He doesn't see value in life based on materialism or a new, shiny pair of jeans. He doesn't act like having more money or items cements his purpose in life or that having the largest social circle is what defines his worth. 

He's kind, loyal and loving, always there to help or go the extra mile for someone, even a stranger, long before he becomes Spider-Man. It's small gestures like how Peter will put away the groceries without May asking after a long shift when she goes to shower the minute she's through the door or how he leaves a microwaveable TV dinner to thaw out in the fridge the nights he’s at Ned's or patrolling. It's between the lines in the way he marks their calendar hanging on their refrigerator the days rent is due when he gets to the mail before May. It's in the tiny cracks no one else sees when Peter is at school and May gets home from a graveyard shift; she'll walk into their apartment and on their kitchen counter lays a sketch of Ben or an origami spider.

He's smart, street-savvy and a scholar. May damn well knows he doesn't get that from her  
side or the family and tells Ben as much as Peter grows older. Maybe it's from Mary or Richard but the kid is a genius, despite her bias; he's a human encyclopedia and calculator as well as incredibly wise for sixteen. He finds joy in machines and wires, endless words on paper pages of studies she can't even pronounce and watches hours of documentary footage with the intensity of a lion stalking his prey.

He's so much more of a man May could have ever hoped for.

If she's being honest, she never wanted kids. Ben and her talked about it before their marriage in passing but with no real promise to their conversations. The concept of carrying around a baby for nine torturous months, angry stretch marks and stitches branding her for the rest of her life, shoving it out after hours of extreme pain and paying more money than she makes in a year for school, clothes and a crib sounds like a lose-lose situation to her. A slimy, hungry and breakable infant dependent on her for eighteen years sounds like her worst nightmare.

When Mary and Richard bring Peter around for the first time, Ben has already met him in the hospital. The two brothers have always been close and May didn't really want to be around to see the process of Mary's lady bits become roadkill forever.

They tell her he was born heavy at eight pounds but all May sees is a tiny alien. He's a small caterpillar cocooned in a baby blue blanket barely the length of her arm. His eyes are scrunched shut with wrinkles and no eyebrows. His hair is an ashy sort of brown May hadn't seen since her teenage years of dyeing. His fingers are half the size of her pinky and his body contorts in small outbursts without any real sense of control or existentialism. He's buckled in a light gray baby swing swaying back and forth. Safety belts mummify his miniscule form and he's seconds away from practically being rolled in bubble wrap when they visit the Parker's apartment a week after the birth.

May didn't even really want to hold him but she could never say no to Ben with his big twinkly eyes and toothy grin. She can tell in that moment that it's something he wants; a family to spoil, love and take care of. He wants the sleepless nights and hyperactive toddler stage, the screaming and tantrums, the spring concerts at school and the swimming lessons; he wants to be the reason someone's life is full of rose-colored memories and stability, not woe and strife.

She sees the way Peter's eyes crinkle when Ben's eyes shine and they giggle during the first year of the kid's life.

But they've talked about it; it's ultimately May's choice if she has to carry a mini demon and raise it into a bratty teenager with first-world dilemmas, cell phones and trendy Adidas earmuffs. That's not to say she actively tries to annihilate the chance of pregnancy from her life, just that she loathes to embrace it without protest. Despite it all, Ben doesn't seem disappointed, just resigned. If it happens, May figures, they'll deal with it.

He cries an ear splitting sort of gurgle when she holds him for the first time. Mary is inches away, guiding her hands and hushing Peter as May sits on their leather sofa awkwardly positioning the newborn between her arms and chest, out of her depth and inexperienced. He's too delicate and she fears if she so much as lets a breath out, he'll shatter into a million pieces.

She's never had to deal with this in her years as a nurse. She's not a midwife or an OB-GYN, only passes by the nurseries and NICU. She caters to the elderly and non-life threatening patients. It's calmer and the stakes are much lower.

She's glad in those years that she doesn't have to deal with this for more than a few hours a month. He's a human hurricane, destroying everything in his path and taking every ounce of resources and energy away from Mary and Richard.

They tell her it's worth it to see their own child take on the world but it never changes her mind. She knows the value of life, she's a nurse for Christ's sake! She values the children in her society and the leaders of tomorrow, etcetera, etcetera. But these gross, flailing and danger prone disasters that are babies are never really something she sees for herself and Ben.

Pete is scrawny but full of energy as a kid; he could barrel into a wall without a blink and get up within a millisecond or break into a million fragments at the slightest gust of wind toppling him over like a house of cards.

The few nights they babysit him before his parents die, he's tucked tightly into the covers like a burrito, safe and secure. The image of a newborn baby Peter flashes into her mind in those moments, so breakable and, yet, so full of energy, life and potential. His body is clad in layers of cotton and polyester clinging to him, insulating his head to his toes in their spare bedroom.

She never quite gets that image out of her head, a caterpillar in its cocoon, hibernating and waiting to transform, resulting in her nickname of ‘bug’ long before Queens favorite vigilante debuts.

When Mary and Richard die, Ben barely takes one glance at the boy clutching the same baby blue blanket he was wrapped in before embracing him and calling him their's. It's a haunting image, a young Peter Parker surrounded by police officers and eyes watery, shrouded with cloudy fear and throbbing uncertainty at the hospital May works at.

She'll take it to her grave, the fact that she considered calling CPS a few days after they cleared out Mary and Richard's apartment and began to adapt to life with Peter. It wasn't because they were treating him badly but that May never felt so out of her element.

She's not nurturing in the same way Mary was, hugs and kisses, or prepared for every stone life throws at her like Richard was, pay docks and workplace strikes.

Imagine not studying for a test that is promised in ten years from now and being told it's happening tomorrow. There are only two options; sink or swim.

She loves the boy, sure, but love from an aunt is not the same as love from a mother. She doesn't know how to play the right types of cartoons so he doesn't become a sociopath; she doesn't know what's trendy for six year-old’s birthday parties or what labels won't have Peter bullied; she doesn't know the near FBI negotiation tactics to have a fussy kid eat his spinach and brussels sprouts without screaming in her face; in truth, she doesn't know if there could've ever be a ‘right time’ for kids between her and Ben if Mary and Richard had lived.

She doesn’t know some nights if she even really loves Peter or just accepts what life throws at her and tries to manage. It’s not that she doesn’t feel the same concern or worry towards the youngest Parker, just that it’s a matter of circumstance. She’s only forcing out her maternal hormones for the kid because no one else besides her and Ben will. It’s not natural, in a sense, the innate ability of nurture versus nature, that every other mother at the school drop off zone seems to possess.

She changes her mind quickly, however, when she starts to understand raising a kid is so much more than feeding it and dropping it off to school. It's about teaching it morals, right and wrong, respect, empathy and courage in moments of despair. It's about showing it that the reflection in the mirror isn't all that defines its insides or showing him the differences around the world, pop culture and politics combined.

In truth, it's about recognizing May's power to control the world in Peter's perspective, and in turn, her power to control the world. It's about strength.

It's never guaranteed that he'll become the next Hawking or Mozart, but she has the power to bring a person with sincere emotions and unwavering ethics to better society. She has the power to turn him into the next John Wayne Gacy or Tim Burton.

She knows that even without Ben, the days she lives on this planet as ‘just Peter's aunt’ are so much more and unbelievably influential to a boy with too much fucked up sorrow in his bones than the rest of the world.

She knows she doesn't love Peter at first, as a son; he's not hers, not really. It quickly flips suddenly one day, the promise that she would die for him without blinking twice, scalding hot fire or drowning a thousand times, be buried alive or comb the bottom of the ocean if it meant that he was safe and sound, a dashing smile a shadow of Mary’s illuminating his feature, even just for a moment.

He's her nephew, her baby, her bug and her little spider. She could never be more overprotective or worried while also hiding her heavy underlying pride towards him.

He may not be hers in blood but she is his, undoubtedly.

And she's known it all his life, so when the almighty Tony Stark and Spider-Man steal Peter Parker away from a broken family cracked at the surface, she shouldn't be as angry or emotional as she is.

He is her sun, her moon and whole galaxy, comets and black holes included, on the days she wishes it was her instead of Ben so Pete could have a better life. He's her rock the nights she sobs into the empty side of the bed, genuinely believing she's a bad parent, and the spring mornings that she wishes she was better at it all, raising a son that never belonged to her; not really. 

And yet, years later, when she thinks the worst has passed, there's the aching reminder of the natural disaster of losing Ben. 

It shakes the very foundation the two remaining Parkers barely stand on, rips their home apart and tears any ounce of security they once had. It breaks May's heart over and over again.

One would think during their wedding anniversary, lonely Christmases or Valentine's Day would be the worst, but May begs to differ.

What normally would be earthquake survivors finding a treasured souvenir broken beyond repair or a burst pipe in the basement that screws up the whole plumbing system years later is different for May and Peter; just when May thinks she's managing everything okay, something in the world crashes into her and breaks her a little more; it's at the work, when a loved one comes to collect their partner from her ward at the hospital, desperate and crowding each other with attention at a near-death experience; it's at the grocery store when a young boy with mud-brown hair gets squished between his parents in a bear hug in the parking lot before they tuck him into his car seat with caution; and it's during a blackout when Peter is out on patrol, sitting alone illuminated by old, orange-hued candles nearly melted completely, wicks bent lopsidedly, a glass of wine in one hand and clutching her phone in the other, tears streaming down her face, that the earthquake haunts her.

It's on that darkened night, she sees a past life flashing in her eyes and heart, the picture-perfect horizon painted with just Ben and her. In another lifetime, they would've played a stupid board game, cuddled tightly for warmth layered on their worn, grey sofa with piles of blankets, made hot chocolate and topped it with a bottle of Bailey's on his mother's old stove, no need for gasoline or electric, or even just sat on the balcony staring at a rare Queens, hushed and dark, no evidence of a city that never sleeps in sight.

The anniversary of Ben's death isn't what May would call an ‘aftermath’ day; it's too sober and somber, ashen and sickly looking splotches of years starting her skin for the rest of the day. It creeps up on her too fast and the weeks leading up to that day disappear like sand through her fingers.

When she finds out about Spider-Man, she can barely breathe through her fury. She worked her ass off to make sure Peter was as happy and healthy as she could manage. But, here he was, putting himself into the first line of danger, disregarding every sacrifice she and Ben had to make, every dollar and every minute set aside to him. He's skating on thin ice between life and death each night without anything to break his fall.

Stark is trying to turn her baby bug into a soldier, a boy into a man, too quickly.

She flays his ass alive after the initial shock and rage take over. Distantly, she notes that perhaps even the Hulk would cower in intimidation.

She screams over the phone for Stark to meet her at her apartment the next day on the night she finds out. She's not going to try killing Stark on his own turf; that'd just make her more frantic and possibly nominate her as a candidate for the mental health ward. She calls in a family emergency day at work and seethes until she hears Peter's soft snores.

That night, she barely sleeps and can't help but desperation of a mental breakdown and an empty bottle of white wine laying at her feet. She cries for Ben and drunkenly asks God what she needs to do. She wonders ‘what ifs’, constants and variables and different timelines; if Peter would have always become Spider-Man with or without Ben; if Stark would have always found Peter, too intelligently bright and too heroic be ignored by the world. She wonders if Mary would be at her throat right now. She wonders if Richard is sighing in disapproval.

But she remembers that Ben was never one to give into his inner demons; if he was around, he would shake her by the arms until she snapped out of it and told her to get a grip. He'd tell her to make a plan and stick to it because that's the woman he fell in love with.

And, so, she does just that. She yells at Tony Stark for a whole two hours while Peter is at school before she feels like she can finally breathe again. He looks apologetic and May can't really tell if he's sincere or not. 

(Her face is hot with anger when an uncharacteristically quiet Tony says after about an hour, “Even if I took the suit away and cut ties with him and the Avengers, would it stop him, May?”

She goes deathly quiet and won't look at him in the eyes.

“I'll admit I may encourage most of Spider-Man fighting bigger crime syndicates,” May balks at Tony's nonchalance, “but he wouldn't stop putting himself in the first line of defense if I tried.”

She'll never say it to his face but Stark is right. She still doesn't like the man, and generally would rather he fucked off and never came within ten feet of here again, but his intentions aren't as harsh and brazen as she thought. He wants what's best for him, superhero or not.)

They come up with a long winded resolution. They can't ban him totally or he'll just rebel and find a different way to be Spider-Man. She can't force him to stay grounded for the rest of high school, either; she wants him to be happy and safe but still be a teenager. She can't teach him life lessons if he never makes his own decisions.

For patrol, they decide a compromise; his focus stays with school and May stays in the loop. In effect then and there, Peter has a midnight curfew void if he's behind in schoolwork; Decathlon practice takes priority, not Spider-Man; she wants him doing as many normal teenager things like parties or drinking if it means he's away from web slinging for a night; he sticks to Queens, no excursions to Germany or Maryland again; no Avengers’ missions unless it's end of the world; and on her days off, no patrolling or else she'll never see him again.

It's bittersweet and feels like she's in a custody battle as a paranoid divorcee, not a widow trying to mend the bursting seams of her family.

Tony sets up May with an app on her phone that shows Peter's general location if he's in the suit. Tracking him 24/7 is a little too suffocating for her, and if Peter is smoking in the bleachers or skipping school once in a while, she doesn't need to know. Stark also forces May to take a monthly cheque to feed Peter properly, much to May's protests and dismay.

They're not a charity chase just because they can't afford fancy Bugattis and yachts, but she knows he's right; now more than ever, it makes her feel like Stark is sending his child support that's due.

She sends his ridiculous gifts and cheques back to the compound the first few times and on more than one occasion; keys to a brand new Audi not even available on the Hong Kong or German market for Peter's sixteenth birthday; private jet plane tickets for an all expenses paid vacation to Hawaii in a five star hotel, luxury recreational day activities and lavish restaurants beyond the most whimsical corners of her imagination; and even her own studio loft closer to work furnished and stocked. She finds out quickly each time she returns something, she will be greeted with a cheque double the original amount and gifts more extreme than the prior.

She never cashes the cheques and sends materialistic items to wards throughout work; stuffed animals for the children's terminal care department, designer clothes to the fundraising auction committee and toy bobble heads of Iron Man to the MRI waiting rooms. To be fair, the man with the suit could cause a headache severe enough for a cat scan just by being in the same room as May.

Some days, she would rather just put a bullet through his head for being so damn attentive and caring towards Peter while also managing to be the biggest reckless asshole on the planet.

One day every other week she agrees to let him train with the Avengers or work in Stark's lab. Reluctantly, she agrees that he need to learn how to fight but if he comes back in worse condition than he left, May won't hesitate in cutting the cord. She demands that no crazy doctors or scientists poke or prod him with needles for experimentation; no identity reveals until he finishes college and has a stable job; and among all else, that every injury, so much as a papercut, is reported to May.

It's like the weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She no longer is as alone as before, caring for a teenager who just wants to do good for the world.

Stark and her aren't friends, certainly not co-parents and are still far from civil, but they agree that Peter is May's child.

Peter, who thinks the fate of the boroughs rest on his spandex-lined shoulders. Peter, whose eyes are so shiny and starry-eyed at age five, she could forget why she was crying. Peter, whose sheer determination to save people is greater than all of the Avengers combined.

It's not so much a grudge as it is her mama bear instincts kicking in, despite the pardon against the Rogues and the world's idolization of heroes. Begrudgingly, May knows they're not all bad but she won't go down without a goddamn fight.

She's trying her fucking best, alright?

And, so, she decides she knows what's best, for a time: whether it be the fact that she was an unwilling mother at one point, a widow or just a nurse in New York trying to make ends meet, when she sees a teenager with a messiah complex clad in red and blue, she knows nothing can knock her down.

The earthquake may destroy the very foundations she stands on, but it passes and, like all natural disasters, she comes out of new and prepared for whatever this fucked up world may throw at her.

But the events of the anniversary of Ben's death that year will continue to surprise her for decades to come...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I changed canon a bit. It's barely noticeable if you want to stick with him getting shot. Ben's death is meant to be vague, either a sudden illness or car accident make sense in this canon.
> 
> As well as the fact that it's been years since Ben died and he never knew Peter was Spider-Man because Spider-Man didn't exist.
> 
> May Parker, honey, I love you, but you're one scary woman.
> 
> I've always felt that people don't give May enough of a realistic personality. She's either too laid back or too much of a bitch. If you think she'd let Peter patrol without literally trying to kill Stark, you need a wakeup call. Also, I love Irondad but the idea of Peter just accepting Tony as his father isn't realistic. There's a lot of inner strife with kids who deal with adoption. The truth is he's probably very fucked up with father-like figures.
> 
> nO pLOt juSt ANgSt
> 
> I also call my little sister ‘baby bug’ when she wears a hoodie with ladybug antennae on the hood, so deal with it, Peter.
> 
> Next chapter will take me a hot minute.
> 
> When will I learn to write fluff?  
> Later, y'all.  
> Reshma


	2. The Blizzard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s wrong; it’s not an 'aftermath day' or even an earthquake, but a blizzard. And it’s so, so much worse than he ever could have expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took me way too long.  
> Beta is my savior killerqueenwrites. I love you for putting up with my nonsense, C.

When Peter wakes up on the day of Ben's anniversary, the apartment is quieter than usual. Downtown Queens is still buzzing from last night and the city is stretching in preparation for another day, but everything is off kilter.

Even if May leaves before he wakes for an early shift, there's usually some aura around the house; the radio playing pop songs in May's bedroom, still too loudly for his super hearing; the stove top fan lowly humming, extinguishing the smoke of a burnt PopTart on a frying pan that's been sitting for at least an hour; or just the lull of the furnace or air conditioning blasting throughout their rooms, serenading Peter's sensitivity to the weather.

But it's too quiet. There's no smell of spoiled breakfast in the complex and the chill in the air isn't from the cold.

He can hear May rustling in bed and the sound of a medication bottle cap popping off. He knows she's no druggie or alcoholic but there's a pit in his stomach whenever the day passes through their apartment, adding gasoline to the fire of his grief.

He wants to take today off of school but he has a physics quiz worth five percent of his final grade and finals are around the corner. He knows May has today off but it's always a toss up as to whether she'll be a functioning human being on Ben's anniversary.

Peter rubs his eyes and steadies himself before he prepares for school. He breathes through his nostrils and out through his mouth a few times but it's not enough to sedate the poison in his lungs.

He's been quiet enough getting ready for school when it all starts off wrong; he's got a piece of cold leftover pizza from two nights ago in his mouth and is about to push the door open when May stumbles through her bedroom door into their living area.

Her hair is stuck up in strange places, frizzy and unkempt, her eyes unfocused and wide and her white pajamas are stained a dark berry red, the faint smell of wine emanating from her room.

“Pete, baby?” Her voice is hoarse from crying and she coughs a little as she leans onto the sofa armrest for support, swaying and fidgeting with her fingers. She's not wearing any quirky socks or fuzzy slippers and there's no normal Aunt May to be found in the woman that stands across from him.

She looks like shit and he wants to fucking cry. It's breaking him just looking at her.

Reasonably, he knows Ben's death isn't his fault but the late nights he misses curfew are his guilt and debt to Ben. To stay out an extra hour in the chances of saving one more person and bringing home one more family member through the threshold instead of a police officer at the door to grief stricken loved ones. 

The wound heals over time but its leaves a nasty scar. And rare days like today, they rip back open that wound, bloody and blisteringly painful.

“Oh, bug.” May sighs and Peter runs into her arms, collapsed shaking with invisible tears and repressed sobs. They stand there for a few minutes, holding onto each other like the other may disappear forever and ever if they let go.

May runs her fingers through his hair and clutches his face in between both palms. She bumps her nose to his chin, a foot shorter than her spider, and whispers quietly, “I love you, honey. You're so brilliant and strong. I'm so proud and Ben,” His name sounds strained on her tongue as Peter tries to snap out of it for both their sakes, “would be, too.”

Her breath reeks of alcohol and she's still slightly rocking back and forth.

They don't really give ‘I love you's or declarations of devotion anymore. It's too much of a reminder, in Peter's bed the week after his parents died as he held May's fingers in a vice, his eyes puffy and heart aching, where she whispered the promise of her always being his family. She stared into his face with a fiery ferocity, a child who had been burned by the world; she forced him to repeat her undying loyalty to him and engraved trust into his soul.

He was so terrified that he was going to lose her, too; that he was cursed and that no one could love him without dying.

It feels strange because he's no longer that little boy. Looking at May like this feels backwards, the child taking care of the adult.

Peter straightens up his back and presses a quick kiss to May's right cheek before leaning back.

“There's coffee in the pot and your laundry already going in the washer. Don't stay in your room for too long, okay?” Peter is ever the savior and May is always bewildered how mature he is.

“Yes, dear.” May says sarcastically and lets out sniffled laugh and wipes her under eye bags free of tears.

Just like that, they're okay again and they can survive the world turning into a monster.

\----------  
The rest of the day is par for the course, quizzes and Flash's stupid remarks. Still, everything feels stormy and covered in blue. Ned is there at his side because he's a real friend, attempting to distract Peter with Star Wars’ theories and even offering to talk about today in the library.

Peter refuses because grief isn't really something that can be shared outside of May. He still indulges in Ned's tangents and manages out a few real laughs for the first time in what feels like forever.

He never really had the time to mourn Ben. May was a mess when he died and he had to step up. He may not have been the breadwinner of their new family of two but he was all that stood between every ounce of their life coming apart at the seams as a preteen. May worked insane shifts at the hospital and locked herself in her bathroom for the first few months, Peter turning up several wine and pill bottles as he would take out their trash. She shut him out and he felt like a stranger in his own home, stale silences at the dinner table and an empty spot on the couch where someone warm and put-together was missing.

May forgot to pay the water charges and account for extra groceries in her monthly calculations. He stayed on top of everything for her sake during that time, bills, doctor appointments and even her coworkers’ birthdays or the hospital's Secret Santa gift exchange that year. His early morning runs to the nearest soup kitchen for canned food and donation centers are something he's still ashamed of, pretending that he was at least 18 and homeless for enough food to last him until Ned could sneak him lunch money or an extra sandwich.

At one point, he debated robbing from a larger grocery store but chickened out at the last minute and hid his reddened face beneath his scarf the whole walk home. He's grateful he didn’t have to put up the act for long but every time he passes by a homeless vagrant on the streets of Queens, either as Spidey or Peter, there’s a flutter of despair in his stomach and his conscious reminding him to give now instead of take. The heater broke that winter in his room and the kitchen, so Peter had taken it upon himself to learn contracting for their apartment systems and fix it before so much as mentioning the dilemma in passing to May. He burned his hands badly and spent nights freezing underneath bulky Salvation Army blankets but he sucked it all up so May wouldn’t burst into tears again at the sheer mention of a minor issue in their lives.

She’ll never say it out loud, but Peter knows that if it weren’t for him, Ben would probably still be alive. She’s a unexpected mother in the worst way and a parent who never wanted to be. He remembers the harshness of the first day after his parents died, an argument bubbling to the surface at a boiling point as May yelled at Ben about how unqualified she was.

(“That kid isn’t ours! How the fuck do you expect us to raise him without screwing him up more?!” He could hear May on the edge of hysterical in her living room, moments after Ben had tucked him in for bed and thought he was asleep. He had held a pillow to his huddled form, stifling his cries and pressing the too-hard fabric into his chest, as if it could stop his heart from bursting out of his chest. He just wanted his mommy to sing him a lullaby like when he would get sick or his dad to read him an adventure book with pain and loneliness that has happy ending. Even without his super hearing, it didn’t take the genius his younger self strived to be to hear that she was drinking that day, having just returned from signing paperwork and talking to social workers at CPS; he knows now that it’s not who she is anymore but it still feels like a cold slap in the face to hear how unwanted he was at one point.

He truly believed he was damned in that hour, destined to watch the most important adult figures in his life vanish into thin air. He was prepared for CPS to knock down his uncle’s door and drag him away, wailing and clawing, from the whisper of a family that once was, again.)

He’ll never mention how some days, even now as the hero and a selfless young man he is, he still feels like a knockoff son, a discounted version with stains and bootlegged patterns stitched up on the inside of his body, a fraud of a real child that is loved.

He knows that she tries to make up for it now, overbearing and protective like never before as Spider-Man. May monitors him more than K.A.R.E.N. and he can no longer hide small injuries or his white lies from her. He’ll never mention how that dark period in their life forced him to grow the fuck up and become more stone faced and closed off towards the world. It’s not necessarily anger or hatred, just caution and a new innate awareness, to be prepared for the worst.

Spider-Man is furthermore proof of Peter’s composure and equanimity against all odds. When the tide goes out and their stableness as a family returns, his alter-ego as a vigilante becomes his outlet to have control. It’s his way of repaying his debt to Ben while also working through the gears and cogs of a city that never sleeps, always moving and crime ridden.

He’s felt like a loose bolt of a complete machine for ages, in some regards. He’s half-doomed anyways.

He was doing awful on the inside, however, after Ben died. There was so much hate and fury at the world; all his male teachers, police officers or even men that May introduced him to, co-workers or dates, were met with an unwavering hostility. He would scoff and ignore them, start petty altercations, physical fights and sneer at them in his mind, establishing a poker face of indifference. He would mock his teachers with the slightest shadow of Ben in their tones and start charged arguments with anyone who would challenge him. Everyone chalked it up to grief, police officers who would ring May to no avail or guidance counselors who knew about Ben’s accident. He remembers his teachers sending him to detention and police officers getting in his face for being so brazen and offensive.

But he’s stronger now, for the people he’s lost and the entirety of Queens’ sake. He’s not breakable and he’s not a fucking child anymore. He only needed May and his friends after losing Ben and he doesn’t need anyone else at 16.

The day is going by fine until Peter freezes and begins to suffocate on what he thought were the debris fumes left from ‘Earthquake Ben’.

He’s wrong; it’s not an 'aftermath day' or even an earthquake, but a blizzard. And it’s so, so much worse than he ever could have expected.

Tony Stark's picture is surrounded by bright, tacky graphics on a freshman girl's laptop screen in the cafeteria, sitting five feet away from him, Ned and MJ; the volume is turned up a few decibels too much for his enhanced hearing and an entertainment gossip reporter is chatting animatedly to viewers on the other side of the screen

“And in Avengers’ news, we've got an exclusive scoop! Tony Stark's engagement to CEO of Stark Industries’ Pepper Potts has been speculated about for months. Sources close to Stark and Potts have been saying that they're getting married because their pregnant. There's been no credibility in this rumour until today, folks! Photos of Pepper Potts’ personal assistant's intern leaving a Manhattan CVS with what appears to be pregnancy tests have just been released. It makes sense for Ms. Potts to send someone indirectly linked to her t-”

The plastic-peppy voice fades out and the world stops for a moment as Peter Parker begins to see an earthquake, the damage and despair of loss and brutal force, shift into restless battalion of a blizzard.

The rumors are mindless gossip from a third rate tabloid and Pepper has more than enough resources within the compound to have a pregnancy test done, not to mention Dr. Banner and Dr. Cho on standby. It’s most likely not remotely true, Peter knows, but he feels something like nausea begin to surface. Her and Tony have joked about children and the future of Stark Industries in Peter's presence over dinner in their private wing at the Compound.

It’s clear that his mentor always tries to make him feel welcomed.

Tony Stark is nothing like people expect, comforting and welcoming while maintaining a kinder sort of charisma and caring sarcasm. Peter anticipated showboating, all stage presence and a choreographed personality down to the gritty details. However, he’s come to realize that all the glitz and glamour is a front for the sake of others. When all that is stripped away, Tony Stark is a genius and a hero, but also merely human. He has the same emotions as Peter; the bubbling laughter at Peter’s embarrassment over young photos of the boy in an Iron Man mask; the exasperated frustration at his perfectly calculated filter deployed and maintained by a StarkJet for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch needing tweaks and improvements; the vulnerability in his somber eyes and too-sober face of his insecurities about doing enough for the world on late nights with cups of coffee in the communal kitchen; and the times he’s charged with fierce energy at the mention of politics involving the Avengers or the Accords starting to fly off the hinges.

But the very real prospect of Tony being a father still shakes him to his core.

The idea of a child sparks both a kindled fire of anger, sadness and jealousy inside him. It doesn't make sense to be this upset over a child that probably doesn’t even exist right now, and yet, there’s something reaching inside him to a locked up place, behind chains and doors, where his love for Ben, his best friend and only role model he ever candidly believed in 100%, went after he di-

Ned and MJ are making concerned faces as Peter nearly chokes on his sandwich as he tries to bristle them off. He doesn’t need this to turn into something more explosive than it already feels.

It’s not really the mention of a baby Stark that has Peter’s head spinning. It’s the sudden realization and knowledge that Tony is nearly a father with him.

He hasn’t realized how badly he depends on Tony until now. How the guilt starts to blister his skin like frostbite that he’s nearly replacing Ben.

The grim realization starts to freeze him; uncontrollable shaking from the temperature drop, body contorting and pulsating unnaturally to conserve heat, eyes barely squinted open from the stings of high wind, and his mouth in between breaths going numb; his lips have to be pried open by his willpower in order to breathe through the never ending arctic. Every puff of hot air feels like it could be his last and his limbs are so frozen from the thin fabric of his jeans, he could become a statue, paralyzed and stuck without energy or any sense of direction.

He feels once the prospect of Mr. Stark becoming a permanent individual in his life becomes cemented and real, he’ll have exchanged Ben like an item at a store and then immediately lose his new father. Because Peter Parker loses everyone eventually.

When he was young, Peter noticed things about Richard Parker. He was stern and a bit square; his composure never faltered and he seemed so obverse in comparison to his wife. Mary, who was kind and sweet, a natural mother with emotions and dimensionality so complex, Peter never stood a chance against any instinct that didn't love her. As a mere child, he never understood how his mom had fallen in love with his dad.

It all changed one day. The horrid premonition that always lingered when his parents would stand next to each other, almost a physical example of an oxymoron or a juxtaposition, was confirmed.

He doesn’t know exactly how old he was, possibly around three years old, but he was staring at the family portrait that hung near their television in the living room. 

Mary was in the kitchen and on the phone to May, Richard was at work and a young Peter Parker was watching the avalanche descend.

Three figures that were supposed to glorify a white picket-fence family eerily resemble the three of the Horsemen of the apocalypse; Peter’s hazel eyes, twinking with joy, and boyish smile, missing teeth and decorated with dimples, were a stark contrast to Richard. At first glance, the boy’s chocolate-brown hair is like his father’s and his eyes are like his mother’s. There’s nothing obviously different that distinguishes Peter’s genetics from his parents’.

But it becomes more off-kilter the longer he stares at it. He doesn’t have Mary’s nose, buttoned and small, or dad’s bulbous one, permanently blushed red from his Irish roots. He has his mother’s eyes but the shape of his is all wrong, hers completely hooded and Richard’s protruding and more of a dark espresso colour. Peter starts to notice a lack of freckles and his face morphing into a mix of Mary’s and a stranger’s as the days pass as a child.

After their death, he memorized whatever he could about his parents at age six, reading the autopsies, their financial records, all the way down to their genetic health risks and results of Apolipoprotein tests. It was mostly out of grief and the desperation to hold onto whatever he could; he eventually watched it all fly away in the soaring wind as May and Ben helped him move on.

Later as a teenager, after Ben, his height exceeded his father's quickly. It didn’t quite make sense but he chalked it up to the weird science of biology, unwilling to rip open that wound again.

But grief didn’t get him anywhere and Peter’s only option was to shove his strife away.

That was before Spider-Man came into the picture.

And then it happened. A week before Ben’s anniversary, he was receiving an enhanced blood transfusion at the compound from Dr. Banner from where get got stabbed during a routine mugging. Terror struck like a power outage in the neverending abyss of snow. 

He hadn’t thought about the boy that cried into his dead parents’ records for years, but as Bruce swiped past a few holograms displaying Peter's extensive medical information quickly, the text of one headline tattooed itself into his mind without warning and the boy clutching whatever remained of his family was brought back to the surface.

Albeit briefly, the images of his late parents and bright text appeared, flashing in an alert, and Bruce swiped them away.  
“MATERNITY TEST WITH MARY FITZPATRICK-PARKER COMPLETED. RESULTS [REDACTED]’

‘PATERNITY TEST WITH RICHARD LAURENCE PARKER COMPLETED. RESULTS [REDACTED]’

RESULTS ARE RESTRICTED. AVAILABLE FOR ACCESS FROM T.S., B.B AND H.C.

His spider sense had immediately gone off but he closed his eyes and clawed his way back out from the rubble of the earthquake.

He had locked all these memories away in the same place he later stores Ben’s death. Chains and padlocks, iron walls and steel restraints. He pushed every drop of doubt so he could be Spider-Man and Peter Parker. He already carried enough baggage. The last thing he needed was more.

And he reveled in the bliss of ignorance. There was no guarantee, right? It could all just be anxiety and his sixth sense going haywire.

The minute a three-year old Peter Parker rejected his gut instinct about his genetics and accepted Richard regardless, his fate with father-figures was sealed.

Peter had subconsciously resigned to the fact that Ben was the closest thing he would have to a father after that. He knows how stupid it sounds, but it’s a plague that only affects him and the ones he loves. The minute he accepts someone as a substitute parent, he loses them. It’s why there’s still a wall between May and him, why he couldn’t tell her when first became Spider-Man. If Ben had been alive, he knows he wouldn’t have been able to keep the secret from him. He was too close with Ben, trying to mirror every good trait and be as selfless as him. He doesn’t want the curse to fall onto May, much less Tony.

Tony...

He’s already so similar to the man, walking in his footsteps while trying to fit into someone else’s shoes.

After his parents dying and the Expo incident, he knows he turned to superheroes as an escape out of his reality: kids picking on him at recess on the basketball court for his imaginary friends named ‘Captain America’ and ‘the Hulk’, lonely lunches spent studying physics lessons well beyond his grade level to become like Tony Stark; group projects working alone in the corner away from his teachers’ stares because he’s an independent black sheep, like Steve Rogers before the super soldier serum, waiting for good things to come; and tested by grief and anguish, bullies and orphanage, suffering through wild calamities, still blindly optimistic like S.H.I.E.L.D. and their hope for humanity.

May and Ben were never sciencey folks and Peter knows the selflessness he exhibits as Spider-Man wasn’t just something they raised him with. After Iron Man became public, he remembers a younger version of himself trying to be a better person for just eight years old.

He remembers the Stark Expo, a then dying Tony Stark still fighting for peace and solving problems much bigger than just a billionaire’'s power, even if people believed he started the wars of the world himself. He remembers Iron Man swooping down to save him and saying, ‘Nice work, kid” and his naivety as child meeting his hero, even just for a brief second, engraving inherit trait of sacrifice and justice into his blood.

And now he sees the striking identicalness at the Compound, training with the other pardoned Avengers as Spider-Man, like every session is his last; or partaking in team movie night while charming his way out of Black Widow’s death stare and being modest enough to have the Avengers there for him as one of their own, albeit the baby of the group. He sees it in the man’s private workshop, engineering new designs for the the hydraulic fracturing crisis in Tunisia for Stark Industries with the same childlike glee in his eyes as Tony; or diving so deep into his work with devotion, intensity and the promise of change that he doesn’t even know what day it is when Tony drags him back to the world.

The ultmost loss and grief that Peter has experienced has brought him here as Tony was brought to Iron Man; a father figure in tow, with the glimpse at his own salvation and the chance that he may not be as doomed as he thinks. He knows that he’ll never be that lonely kid again, clinging to a dream or having to be strong every minute of every day so the floor doesn’t cave in between his feet.

He should be grateful and optimistic. So why is the idea of Tony becoming the closest thing to a dad ruining him?

Just as the near panic-attack begins to reside and he attempts to regain his composure, he hears Tony’s voice, clear and nonchalant, blaring from the laptop speakers. 

“Are you kidding? I don’t want a child! The Stark name is very valuable. It’s a miracle I don’t have any running around already,” There’s something cocky and arrogant in his tone, the dance of a grin appearing on his face in Peter's mind, “but as to your inquisition, if any women come forward to claim that I am the father, paternity tests will be done and we'll deem if I end up footing the bill. God forbid, I want nothing to do with them as a father.” There's something cold at the end, halfway between a sneer and a leer.

It's a recording from years before Afghanistan and the tabloid host continues to wildly gesture and squeal into the camera lenses.

He knows the person Tony Stark used to be before Afghanistan like the back of his hand. A playboy and warmonger, a man with a disconnect to the rest of the world and its consequences, like he’s watching everything happen on stage to a bunch of puppets, a world of make-believe and just pretend.

The lack of empathy is proven further when the eeriness of hearing Tony's voice, more immature and uncaring of the world, talks about someone like Peter, a child, like an item to be discarded and cemented by the deep pit of despair festering with numbness inside the boy's chest.

Suddenly the cold starts to burn him. Isn’t it called paradoxical undressing in the final stages of hypothermia? His nerves are too severely damaged and he’s losing the last of his rationale.

“I have to go,” Peter blurts out and grabs his backpack; before Ned can blink, he’s already out of the cafeteria.

He crams himself into a supply closet near the history wing on the third floor where no one but the stoners frequent. He plugs his earphones into his laptop and sits on top of a broken desk and K.A.R.E.N. greets him as he opens her program.

“Hi, Peter,” The A.I. chirps brightly. He can't help but feel annoyed at her tone for the circumstances.

“K.A.R.E.N., can I access F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s medical database at the compound from here?” His voice is tight and feels wobbly even though he’s sitting down. If he doesn’t get the answers he needs soon, he might break into a thousand pieces and never be put back together again.

There’s an uncertain twinge to her robotical voice as she says, “We have standard access for Level 4 files, including your current prosthetics specs from last night. Would you like me to pull those up?”

She’s deflecting and Peter is unimpressed. “How long will it take for you to get in to Dr.Banner’s treatment files from last week?”

“Peter, you are not authorized to access Level 5 information and I must inform Mr.Stark if you att-”

“Activate ‘Snitches-Get-Stitches’ Protocol and go dark. Get into those entries.” He feels like a bad spy out of a shitty James Bond movie for being so guilty; Natasha would probably barely blink at him and shoot him for his lack of composure if he tried a life in espionage.

Before hesitancy starts to seep into his consciousness, Peter is already looking at several screens from the hours after the stabbing.

And then he finds it. After ten minutes of cracking the firewall and nearly sobbing into his sweater, the file name PBENJAMINP_RESULTS.fa glaring into his eyes.

Peter takes a deep breath and steels himself for the worst.

If he wasn't Richard’s, then did that negate Ben raising him? Did it make Ben merely a foreigner? And what about May? Not even blood-related to start with and now barely more than just strangers?

Did it matter more if Mary left Peter in her will to the Parkers or did the fact she lied to everyone overshadow it?

If he wasn't Ben's ‘almost son’, he was a stranger. It would spiral into somehow meaning he wasn’t Spider-Man.

(“But I’m nothing without this suit!”

“If you’re nothing without the suit, you shouldn’t have it.”)

Who the hell was he? Not knowing was somehow so much worse than deliberately disregarding a premonition.

As he clicks with his fingers on his laptop, the blizzard never stops disorienting every inch of his world. Only now, the snowflakes carry no individuality and the constant blur of only white as far as he can see becomes all he knows. There are red, blue and green paraboli, numbers and letters explaining each D.N.A. marker and his personal information including his height and weight towards the bottom.

But clear as day, the summary at the very bottom of the files leads Peter to his answer.

“MATERNITY TEST WITH MARY FITZPATRICK-PARKER COMPLETED.  
RESULTS: PROBABILITY OF MATERNITY: 99.746 %’

‘PATERNITY TEST WITH RICHARD LAURENCE PARKER COMPLETED.  
RESULTS: PROBABILITY OF PATERNITY: 0.001%’

It made sense and, yet, it still stung like a bitch. 

The migraine of it all, his parents never really being his, begins to blossom at the base skull between his neck and ear, the latter developing desensitization to the temperate. He feels blind, the white of the winter becoming all he knows. There is no warmth or shelter or emotion; there is just here and now. Frost invades his nose and mouth, every last string of ice attacking his hair and runny nose. The few buildings Peter can make out are indistinct and snow devils whirlwind around, columns of snow swirling on the streets and the sides of the road, a startling replica of dust devils in the dessert.

As Peter sits in shock, he stares at his mother’s picture and her hazel eyes gleaming with mischief. It doesn’t feel real.

A footnote at the side, entitled ‘Common ancestors listed in PBPMatches.fa’ suddenly peaks his interest and, mindlessly, he clicks on it. 

He expects to see Mary and the faces from black-and-white photo books he doesn’t quite remember. Maybe some stranger from middle-of-nowhere-Idaho or a country in Europe that’s known for selling false teeth, Latvia or something.

The last thing he expects is to see Tony Stark’s face and his correlation D.N.A. markers exactly matching his own.

‘PATERNITY TEST WITH ANTHONY EDWARD STARK COMPLETED.  
RESULTS: PROBABILITY OF PATERNITY: 99.925%’

He wants his enhanced sight to be playing tricks but he knows better. He could see expanded information of allele sizes found in his chromosomes. He doesn’t need to double check F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s calculations of his loci.

“God forbid, I want nothing to do with them as a father.” A younger Tony Stark’s words are more daunting than before. 

He lost his true father before he had a chance. He really was cursed from the start.

He knows that the man he saw earlier on the screen isn't the same one that runs his hand through Peter's hair when he's been shot or stabbed, as if he is precious and might disappear like ash, a steadfast presence of certainty and a natural domestication in the medbay at the compound with Bruce hovering with attentive concern. It’s not the same as when he was young and selfish. Peter knows what it's like; to take everything for granted, and then, for it all to be gone in a flash.

He knows the real Iron Man and yet it still hurts, daggers of frosted ice pelting under his skin and a heavy fog clouding his vision. There's something deeper, Peter knowing that he'll never quite prove himself enough or that he'll always be an ‘almost son’ and never quite good enough for the real deal.

In that moment, Peter knows he’ll never get over the Vulture incident. Tony’s mistrust in him and his attempt to be more than just a vigilante, to be anything more than just a stupid teenager in his mentor’s eyes. Because deep down, he knows that he would make any sacrifice to break down the barrier between mentee and ‘son’.

All of this crashes into Peter’s head at once and he feels like he’s stuck underneath 10 feet of snow, frantically trying to claw his way back out to see the gravel-grey barren sky. The view was an unbroken sheet of white, all shifting whiteness. He can only hear the wails of the wind, screeching and snarling ripples, as his body is gouged and gashed by every vengeful bullet of snow and the endless cold.

It’s the aftershock. The clipping winter has given too much and Peter is spent, exhausted and crippled into oblivion.

He was already getting too close to genuinely loving Tony too much. The reality is he feels like he’s losing his parents and Ben all over again.

He really should know better than to throw stones at an already breaking glass house.

Peter doesn't know in that moment if this is what he wants. He didn't even call Ben, ‘dad’. He was already Uncle Ben by the time they adopted him. May is his only mother-figure, sure, but she's not his mom. It's not fair that he has to choose now in a whiteout of too much emotion.. 

It wrings his heart out like a wet rag, heavy and overloaded only to be thrown back into the mix seconds later; the fact that he has to make this choice. It isn't even really about what he wants anymore.

Maybe it's the fear that every father figure he's ever had has disappeared like a needle in a haystack, lost to time and more pressing matters.

But this is more important than he’ll ever admit, he knows.

Somewhere deep in his insecurities and behind the mask of being Spider-Man or May’s almost son, he wonders if he would even be worthy of a father figure after Ben. The guilt that he lives with, the fact that he could’ve saved the one he trusted the most. Does May even think he’s deserving?

He doesn’t know how his mother and mentor got together, if they were ever anything more than a one night stand or if Richard even knew the truth. In hindsight, there’s nothing that suggests that Tony even knew that Peter was his. He doesn’t care. There’s an anger simmering where the snowstorm is melting.

Peter doesn’t even remember the earthquake of Ben anymore. All he knows is the hardcore blizzard; it chills down his spine to his toes, a violent outpour of needles prickling every hair on his body. There are ice pellets rebounding from his shivering form, light blinding his vision and every atom he is made of disappears into the neverending expanse of white. The disorienting wind throws all judgement and perspective off center, the snow deafens every sense and sends frostbite to his insides. It swallows him whole and forces him to abandon everything and everyone he loves.

No. Tony does not get to rip that locked-up box open. He’s closed it for a reason, so nothing can hurt him like that again. He’s become fucking Spider-Man and been independent for years. He is not jealous and he does not need a father at goddamn sixteen. He’s an Avenger and he is not going to let some D.N.A. test break him the way Ben’s death did.

He’s going to man up, raise his walls and let the world try to break him down on his fucking own. Damn it all to hell.

Peter shuts his laptop and walks out of Midtown School of Science and Technology without hesitation. As he passes the busy streets of New York and sidesteps into an alley to become Spider-Man, one thought crosses his mind;

He does not know himself as Peter Parker, the boy who grew up without the truth. Tony took that away from him before he was born But he knows himself as Spider-Man and he’d rather be dead than watch Mr.Stark try and take that as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhhh?!?!?!?  
> It's -20°C outside and I'm cold.  
> Just finished writing, please excuse typos or randomly cut off sentences.  
> So, I didn't expect this to go the route it did, but I'm not mad at it. i expected it to be a simple injury angst fic but I'm back on my bullshit. This is so long but I think the last chapter will be shorter.  
> We love a procrastinating and inconsistent queen.  
> No plot, only angst.  
> hOney, YOu'vE Got a bIG StoRm COmiNg  
> Come hide with me in the comments 🙈\  
> Laters, babes  
> \- Reshma


	3. The Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoNeY YOu'Ve goT A BiG stORm coMinG  
> Oof.  
> Betas are:  
> Killerqueenwrites (Ciara)  
> Marilia (bluebird_skies)  
> Tom (tomthomas101)  
> Thank you for dealing with my inability to make sense.

The earthquake was a shock; losing Ben was a lesson in trusting no one and being self-reliant. It’s the hard truth that the world isn’t on his side and it builds Spider-Man from the debris other people throw away as trash.

The earthquake breaks his world and teaches him to make better walls as to need no one.

The blizzard is a bombshell he isn’t prepared for; the grim awakening that he’s been subconsciously replacing Ben and leaning on someone that wasn’t his to begin with. He’s become too comfortable and the nor'easter reveals that the truth of his family is melted snowflakes, all individual uniqueness lost in the current. The people he grew up with and that shaped him are merely strangers; his mentor is now someone he doesn’t know if he trusts anymore.

The blizzard blinds the horizon and disillusions everything he knows from Ben; it evokes an empty and numb feeling that he’s lost and no longer knows the hazel eyes he’s seen all his life in the mirror. 

But the storm… it’s something else all together.

The first incident was a day back in elementary school; some ignorant prick had said something, again, about his parents and a young Peter Parker had almost ripped him to shreds. Something broke inside him. He wanted the world to burn, but he had to control himself before he did something stupid. Instead, he huffed into his coat in the middle of winter and left school as children laughed behind him. Walking across the street, he stayed in the back corner of the local park. Peter made his way over to the basketball court with no net and started throwing the few leftover basketballs stuck in the snow at his target.

That’s how it happened. He was violent in a subtle way, continuously slamming the equipment against the headboard and just allowing himself to be purely enraged for a minute.

Perhaps the Hulk would’ve scoffed at his outburst.

May and Ben had been furious at him, but if Peter hadn’t left then and there, he knows he would’ve genuinely hurt someone.

And then it resurfaced when Ben died. He roamed the streets in the early afternoons, ditched a few classes and got in the faces of police officers and teachers.

He was so angry and it scared him. It’s a unsatisfied emotion that just leads to trouble and more pain. It makes his ears burn and his face red. He’s not naturally a fighter but he knows losing people to death forces him to be. He just wants to be happy and love people like his parents always told him to.

God, he wishes he could just wash this feeling away with a hot shower or fill the prickling sensation in his ribs with May’s blend of chamomile tea instead,.

It smolders inside him with no flame. It’s all heat and no fire, so what is the fucking point? He can’t do anything about it because he’s still just a goddamn kid and he’s not a bad person, no matter how much his conscious wavers at times.

Anger isn’t something he can do anything about. There’s a throbbing in his head to do more, for something big to happen to stop this frustration.

It’s different on Ben’s anniversary.

The storm forces him out of his skin; it’s like losing control but allowing it to happen. Similar to a glass slipping from his grasp and watching all hell break loose in slow motion. He could stop it if he tried but it feels good to watch the world burn for a bit.

It’s hard to explain. The storm inside him is violent but fading, too. Lightning strikes without warning while bright and explosive blasts of static zip past a shriveled form in the rain. The cold of the water is like ammunition hitting a bunker, ruthless and blistering. The world is dark. It's not like the blizzard, disorienting and off-centre, but crystal clear and all-too present in his mind; It’s dynamite and like stepping on landmines. There’s a physicalness to it, a barrier between who he really is and who the weather turns him into. The droplets that have Peter flinching every few seconds, arms trying to shield his face and eyes, his body shaking from unrelenting cruel downpour.

It’s the type of cold that stings because his fingers are never dry. It’s the certainty that he’ll get a cold when he gets to shelter but the thought of anything other than this barrage attacking his senses is a lifetime away. The wind is unforgiving, his hair constantly pushed in front his eyes. The water pelts his skin and eyes like individual push pins turning like face red in protest. The roar of the gale slams pellets of dirt and water directly onto any remaining exposed skin not already under attack.

It hurts, goddammit, it hurts like hell. He had the calm before the storm, the new way of life between him and May, and he should have known that something like this was coming.

It's the fact that he's missed his first driving lessons he thought would be with Ben. He's missed fishing trips and his first shave and homecoming and eventually it will be prom and graduation and college and moving out without him, too. May is more than enough most days and he's not ungrateful but there's always going to be a hole where something was. He never anticipated on the fact that he's subconsciously been filling it.

If he closes his eyes for too long, when he’s trying to keep his composure together, when he remembers that Ben’s death is not just an over extended nightmare or the fumes of smoke from a burning building start to really get to him, he can see the Vulture towering over his crumpled form. He sees black mechanical wings and neon green eyes staring into his soul, the gatekeepers between life and death.

It feels the same as the storm; a hopeless fear that he’s not enough, a callous anger at the pain on Coney Island and the betrayal that no one takes him seriously. Not Tony fucking Stark, Happy or goddamn May thinking he’s still crippled from grief.

He can carry his own baggage just fine.

God, May. How is he supposed to face the music with her? To tell her that she’s been scammed out of a normal marriage and adult life because her sister-in-law wasn’t honest? To prove that Ben’s death was once again his fault? She’s been robbed and deceived and it's all too fucking much to even listen to the tiny voice in the back of his head saying, ‘She’ll kick you to the curb’. 

Would she throw him out? Or would she want proof? He doesn’t even know if he can look at Iron Man again, much less atone her for all he’s put her through.

She and Ben established his morals and ethics from an orphan with trust issues; be it the bravado around bullies on the playground after his parents died and never giving into the urge of a fake personality to just ‘fit in’. To be compassionate when the world isn’t, to be grateful, to forgive but not forget, to stick to his promises, and to be loyal when all seems faithless. The nights Ben held him underneath his covers, clad in Iron Man pyjamas and read him stories about the hero conquering evil within the first year of the funeral are sometimes the only glue holding him together. The fact that they put everything on hold in their lives to take care of him, tried their damndest to give him a proper education and even make it into Midtown.

They gave him everything when he had nothing; Ben with his eyes fulls of strength and virtue that would make Steve Rogers envious and May with her rose-colored glasses and no-bullshit personality when the world was vicious. 

When he hit a wall he couldn’t go around, they built a moat or a ladder.

It’s a completely different ballgame now. He’s losing another fucking parent.

When the storm would get so bad, his uncle and aunt would be there with an umbrella and a towel to dry him off. Now, he’s alone and there’s no end in sight to the deluge.

After Ben died, he couldn’t lose May. It would cause him to lay awake at night in anxiety and curl up in May’s bed on the really bad nights. He set up so many safeguards to protect her, getting her brake fluid replaced in case of a car crash, keeping a bottle of pepper spray in her purse for the nights she comes home from the hospital and installing his own security system in case of another burglary. He was paranoid and she wasn’t a fully functional adult after the funeral, so he pulled his weight and had tried to keep what remained of his family together.

If he lost her, he’d be in foster care and the last thing he wanted to deal with at the time was some white family ‘saving’ some broken kid with emotional baggage. He didn’t want a new mother or father, no siblings or saviours, he just wanted May’s heart to keep beating.

She’s all he’s been clinging to after Ben and is half the reason Spider-Man is a hero and not some mad scientist. He stays close to the ground and on top of his classes for her sake, does as much ‘normal’ teenage shit, like parties and decathlon, to give her comfort and tries his best to be a good person despite all the bad in all of New York City.

But Peter always knew he was just an ‘almost son’. There was never the biological connection and now he’s fucked.

There’s going to be a new wave of grief when she finds out and she’ll hate him for taking away her husband when Ben was never Peter’s, for wasting her time and money and for robbing her of the life she’s alway deserved.

The bolts from the storm burn with fluorescence at seemingly random times, but Peter knows better. There’s a pattern to the madness but it’s so much more than people think.

The electricity is almost fighting against itself, a contest for power and the ability to conquer; Peter isn’t going to stop it any time soon.

“Peter, you appear to be in distress.” K.A.R.E.N. has been quiet since the blizzard and Peter feels like he’s skating on thin ice with the rest of the world.

He hasn’t even noticed the tears sticking to the mask, stuck in between the area of his cheekbones and nose. He doesn’t respond because what is there to say?

He just wants to be alone for the rest of eternity.

Swinging through the neon city, be it restlessly from the visions that haunt him when he closes his eyes or the paranoia of other families falling apart like his due to an accident he can prevent, is the only thing that helps. It’s the cool rush of wind between the suit’s heater and his skin; it’s the adrenaline of diving from a fifty-story building into incoming traffic and shooting a web just before he hits the pavement, flying up and down, free and fearless.

Perhaps the spider-bite came at the right time, to give him an excuse to escape his mourning and slam the brakes on growing up too fast. As mature as he has to be as Spider-Man, there’s an anonymity to it all and it’s not just the spandex mask that hides his identity.

It doesn’t make sense when he says it out loud, but he isn’t Peter Parker when he’s Spider-Man.

Well, no shit, but it’s more than that. He’s not a young child fresh from losing his parents, succumbing to grief, drowning in tears and hiding under covers from the future. He doesn’t have to worry about paying rent or their nosy landlord, he doesn’t have to worry about if May is eating enough or drinking again and he no longer has to see Ben in every male teacher at school trying to reach out or wondering about his lost parents’ pride.

He’s not broken and he isn’t alone when he’s Spider-Man.

Neon white flashes disappearing within a millisecond are all Peter can see now.

He saves people and he knows he’s good. He’s not selfish or undeserving, he’s no longer cold from the blizzard or in shock from the earthquake.

He’s free.

He realizes how insane his hopefulness is on rare days. How the light inside him is so bright when the darkness is consuming him alive.

But it’s not here today.

Swinging through the streets of Queen’s is a mindless task but it doesn’t subdue the fury inside him.

Could he even be Spider-Man if Ben was never his? What about the Avengers? Did he even have a place anymore? And Tony… 

The Avengers are supposed to be his chosen family, proof that he isn’t doomed to watch everyone he loves rot in a grave. Spider-Man is his debt to society for the true evil in the world and his promise to Ben to be as good as he can be. He wants to be a hero for the sake of others having a normal life, for one less kid to go through the pain he has and to sleep better knowing that one less person is suffering like he did, like he still is.

Does he even love Tony? What does that even constitute? Does he have to nuance the entirety of their complicated relationship to prove his individualism or justify his charter for? 

Tony, who was never his father to begin with, and now, all he has left of a family.

This must be fate laughing in his fucking face.

He’s stopped several muggings and a bank robbery with more force than necessary tonight. He knows his own enhanced strength, but he’s been rougher with criminals, almost bloodthirsty or feral. It’s a way of expelling his energy incorrectly but it’s all he can turn to right now. He can’t deal with Tony right now or any of the Avengers.

The police officers who dealt with the amateur bank thieves tried to have Spider-Man stick around after he gave a rushed statement. Maybe he’d used a bit too much in his swing when he knocked one of the men with a gun to the side. Maybe he didn’t have to wait so long to call the police waiting outside through his suit after he’d webbed them up like his official statement alluded to.

He’d stared at the men, one upside down from the ceiling and another stuck to the wall facing him, both in their late thirties with scruffy stubble and upturned wrinkles around their eyes, through his lenses for a beat. It was something like rage coursing through his veins, the urge to scream, make them bleed and leave them knocked out for how stupid they were.

He pulled his arm back to punch the leader of the duo square in the jaw when something snapped inside him.

For a moment, the wind changes. The clouds are covered in a soot-black layer as leftover plastic and dried out leaves whip and slash through the deafening gusts of mistral. The wind is headed down it’s own path, racing past Peter with ferocity and leaving him in the dust. Abruptly, the top of a lightning bolt beams, a burst of incandescence across the entire landscape, no difference between the earth and the wellkin. 

And then there is darkness within a few milliseconds as Peter tries to breathe.

Just when he thinks it’s over, the whole sky is ignited with white, a blur of too many flares and as he tries make out the individual strands of electricity, they are vaporized into tiny branches crackling into oblivion. The first return stroke is what it’s called and Peter has never felt so alive.

It’s like the sky is crinkled with mischief, lucent with anger and yet holding its breath in anticipation.

It’s effulgent and cuts into Peter’s core, fueling an electrically charged fervor that he can only experience during a tempest.

But just as Peter catches a glimpse of the bolt, the lines branching off like the roots of a grand oak tree and flashes of havok-inducing chrome and silver bursts from the heavens, it begins to disappear. He doesn’t have time to blink before the image turns to black and the soaring rain drowns him again.

All that is left is the thunder and drizzle, no proof that the outburst from Mother Nature ever happened at all.

He stopped, fought the storm for a minute, and told K.A.R.E.N. to call the police.

He merely shrugged off the officer’s hand from his shoulder and webbed a nearby streetlight to hoist himself in the air. The deputy asked him with a raised eyebrow pointedly, “Are you in some kind of trouble, son?” and stepped forward towards the masked man. Peter scoffed and slung away at the question.

There’s an ache in his chest and a stirring in his stomach now. His heartbeat in erratic and his head is full of stormy weather.

The first crash of thunder always startles people but it’s the lightning that’s always fascinated Peter.

The most familiar to him is cloud-to-ground lightning, the negatively charged bottom of the cloud traveling to the positively charged ground below. Two opposites perfectly intending to attract and cause destruction and rampage.

It’s how he feels most of night, rearing for a confrontation and ready to attack.

Sheet lightning occurs like it’s behind the clouds, the over encompassing white-outs that flash through the entire sky for a split second, blinding everywhere. They are tucked away so no one can see the real extent of the damage and the real fight is obscured.

It’s the truth brewing at the back of his mind, avoiding the root cause of his emotional outburst but running off the high it gives him and flying off the handles while he has the chance.

And then there’s cloud-to-cloud lightning when the light is on the underside of clouds, almost a skeleton holding the storm aloft. It will stay between the clouds and the sky, the charges of electricity fraught with energy and vibrancy. It’s a war within itself, desperately battling for triumph.

It’s how he knows this will end; a lose-lose situation where he won’t be able to hold the storm up forever.

It’s the spider lightning that’s his favourite. It’s a visible spectacle of hundreds of beams typically sprouting from the insides of several clouds to every inch of the sky, as far as his eye can see. The beams look like an arachnid’s legs, crawling brilliant and brazen. They climb up the clouds slower than other bolts and strike both clouds and the ground. 

Lightning has always fascinated him for the wrong reasons: its sharp adequacy to tap into his most primal, basic reflexes and to restore the balance in the sky.

Deep down he knows that this isn’t the truth; it’s the fifty-thousand degrees of heat and a hundred million volts in force electrifying every impulse and decision.

The storm isn’t who he truly is, but it’s addictive nonetheless.

The anger towards Tony is all over the place. Yes, it’s unreasonable but he doesn’t care. He’s spent too damn long repressing his emotions to be composed right now. Maybe he doesn’t even know and Bruce conducted the initial DNA test. If he does know, does that make it worse? Was recruiting him for Germany his initiation as a hero or a fucked up way to reach out to his son?

How had it even happened? His mother was nothing like Tony and Peter never expected Mary to be attracted to the novelty of a celebrity. Had they worked together at Stark Industries? Had they been a couple? Or just a fling? Had she been with Richard for as long as May told stories of or was that just another lie to add to the pile? Why did it disappoint him so much? 

Why was it a surprise that his mother was more of a stranger than his father? What did it make Richard? A red herring or an accomplice? Were they Bonnie and Clyde or was Mary the Wizard of Oz, pulling the curtain behind everyone’s eyes?

Well, he’s been learning to keep his expectations low and his hopes high for a while. It’s time reality caught up to him.

He feels like he barely knows Tony with this new title. There was a bridge to cross before the results of the DNA test in their relationship. It had taken him small strides and steps backward to accept Tony as an authority figure and to trust him after Coney Island. It hadn’t been easy, to wonder if this was going to come back and bite him in the ass later or to hope that Ben would be proud despite his scoffs at Stark Industries and their indifference to conflict in the Middle East.

For a moment, Peter imagines it. Living at the Avengers Compound, having a permanent place to stay at the dinner table with Pepper, knowing he has backup when he needs it, and allowing some of walls to come down around Tony. The idea that he could be more open and emotionally raw, that he could afford to make mistakes without the worry of exile and that he would have a family to fall to if someone died.

Even with his uncle and aunt, at first, there was something bigger than a wall between his younger self and them. Maybe it was a result of how broken he was or the fact that he didn’t know how to trust anyone. It was the perpetual rush of water falling from the sky, the constant vertigo of the world tumbling further down and down.

But May had built a ladder and Ben had dug a tunnel.

He realizes that Tony has already created a moat to get around this same wall and Peter has almost met him halfway.

It’s not about the Stark name or the wealth in that moment. It’s not even really due to the fact that he’d be closer to Iron Man; it’s the weird serendipity of it all, the chance of something real and reliable. He knows who Tony is behind the smoke and mirrors and he thinks that, maybe, Tony would try to be more than a mentor. He would watch stupid Disney animations with Peter and take him out to get a thrifted microprocessor for his old school Macintosh 128K.

Tony Stark was a colossal part of his life before Spider-Man ever existed. Superheroes were his fictitious friends when an newly orphaned Peter Parker had none. He studied and worked hard so one day he may compare to the man that was changing the faces of weapon engineering and clean energy. He was pressed on every side and crushed; perplexed and in despair; persecuted and abandoned; he was struck down, and yet, he got back up time and time again because that’s what Iron Man would do. Through tribulations and misfortunes galore, Peter did not equivocate in his dedication to be a better person; he vowed to fill the shoes that he would never fit into and to move mountains to help people.

He doesn't want to be treated like a child but a person with a family, support and security. Something bigger than just May and him sitting at a lonely table missing a chair on New Year's Eve, uncharacteristically empty, at their favorite Thai place to eat. It still feels like on some days, the world is slipping from his grasp and cutting too deep into his arteries. It feels too similar to the ‘almost son” label with May when Ben died; the unwantedness of being no one's kid and feeling the heavy burden of his faults and the rest of the world's woes on his shoulders.

When Tony took away the suit, it shattered something inside him. The fact that he had tried his fucking best and still failed. The fact that he was an outcast from the vigilante life he chose, not Stark. The type of intensive despair and betrayal with the loneliness and isolation beating through his body for those few weeks wrecked him. It wasn’t even like he could tell his aunt about this new found mourning. Spider-Man is sometimes all he can afford to be, not a harrowed and grief-stricken Peter Parker. And then, after nearly dying to take down Toomes’, struggling to protect May, Liz and Ned, his Coney Island fiasco to prevent the Chitauri tech from getting into the wrong hands and, when all is said and done, Mr. Stark offering him a position with the Avengers like it’s just water under the bridge, Peter still feels that resentment.

The opportunity for a traditional sort of ‘real’ family is just within his grasp and reasonably he knows May would never let biology sever their bonds. He remembers the first time he was hospitalized and Ben was on a business trip out of town; he was nine and had fainted on a school trip to the zoo in Queens. The staff in the waiting area were dubious about her paperwork deeming her as a ‘guardian’ and wrinkled their noses when she clarified she was a nurse. She barely let their threats of calling the police faze her as she raised all hell before getting to Peter’s bed in the emergency ward.

He remembers clutching her hand and a snooty nurse saying some shit like, “He’s not blood-related, you can’t blame us for being skeptical.” when May suggested her nephew deserved better treatment and that she’d be filing a complaint. She proceeded to lay into them for being unprofessional and stared at him with a zealous sort of devotion in her eyes.

May and Tony? They were already so close to family despite genetics already. It wasn’t logical not to trust them.

But the storm isn’t logical.

The thunder is a low rumble. When the shock of the flash of lightning has barely registered, an eruptive crack startles him in his core. It’s deafening and almost numbing, the way it zaps sound into every inch of Peter’s body. In any other instance, the sound of the sky screaming would be a premonition or a threat, the warning of something tyrannical and vicious. But the thunder that follows lightning is something he sees not as a warning but as a reminder; a reminder that the worst of the world comes without caution.

The myth of the seconds and miles between lightning and thunder to Peter are different; the seconds between sight and sound are the moments when his heart and sense come back into view.

Although anyone in Queens can look up from the streets as Spider-Man swings around on a cloudy Tuesday, they can’t see the violence brewing beneath the mask.

The storm is where Peter has always belonged. It’s ironic how alive he feels when the bolts have struck him nearly dead.

Storms are never meant to last, but the challenge of nature taking out its anger is entrancing. The fact that permanent damage can be done in a moment and the way rain can displace a whole country’s hope for humanity.

That’s not just it, he knows. Storms are where he can hide and everyone can chalk it up to his blithering frustration from the clouds and the smoke.

So, he fights the end of the storm and continues to watch his skin shrivel in the pounding rain.

\---------------------------------------------------------  
(“I just want to be a normal kid!” He remembers frustratedly arguing at May as she practically screams in a gut wrenching sob. He was nine years old and he's still inside the echoes that have faded out. The reverberations of not having parents to make cards for on Mother's Day at school or staring in the bathroom mirror with beady, brown eyes that don't resemble May or Ben's still shake in his core from that age. He feels isolated in his own world for a while, outcasted from the world with a specific kind of pain and grief. He'll never truly know if his parents would love who he is now, if they would cheer on Spider-Man or just Peter Parker. He'll never get to ask them if they're faithfully proud or if the warm glow in their smiles is as fictitiously welcoming as his childlike memories stitches into his core.

“But you're not a normal kid, Peter.” May tries to reason, exasperated and tired. She just wants to help but he knows she’s under equipped for a hyperactive child with a brain running faster than the rest of the world. He knows she could never have been prepared for the baggage and pain he carries through every waking moment.

“You would’ve never been normal, with Mary and Richard being biologists; they were the best in their field. You would’ve had to live up to their expectations and be the ‘legacy child’ they always raved about.” May’s pleading voices turning into a sort of sneer at the end.

Peter remembers melting into May’s arms and listening to her heartbeat as they fell asleep in his childhood bedroom, her words resonating deep into his soul.

She whispers into his hair later that night, “No matter what, baby bug, you could never just be normal.” 

He feels the truth of her words now more than ever.)  
\--------------------

How long can he stay away from Tony before it becomes obvious that Peter’s avoiding him? He’ll have to miss lab days at the Compound and make sure to specify training days with only Natasha, Sam or Steve. Fuck, and what about his suit upgrades and web fluid? He’s no longer just a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, and yeah he managed fine before, but what happens when there’s someone worse than the Vulture?

How is he ever supposed to face a man who doesn’t need him?

Because that’s what this is. The fear or rejection and solitude. It’s not like his parents were ever the epitome of warm and devoted, and the bite from being an almost son of May and Ben never quite stops stinging. 

Peter needed Iron Man growing up. He knows this as fact in the same way he knows his heart beats when he wakes up from another nightmare about the Vulture. Without his hero, he would’ve lost everything May said make him special; his hyperactiveness at the sight of a toy to build, his toothy grin that crinkles enough to have complete strangers trust him, the charismatic spark in his eyes at going to school despite the bullying and the way his legs twitch at the desire to run, run as fast as his legs can carry him to explore and be something in the world.

There would’ve been no joy in his life if he had kept waking up with the constant hangover of mourning.

He knows he wouldn’t be as close to Ben if they hadn’t built his Iron Man suit for Halloween three years in a row or if he hadn’t gone to May for spelling mistakes on an English report on his idol. He wouldn’t have been as hopeful if the the man who flew a nuke into a wormhole hadn’t fallen back out and proven to the world that he was more than society’s assumptions.

He didn’t need Iron Man when Ben died or when he started as Spider-Man but he was always at the back of his morals. He would have never become Queens’ favorite superhero if the man who stopped manufacturing weapons didn’t come back from Afghanistan.

But he needed Tony during Toomes. He needed him and he wasn’t there when Coney Island was alight during homecoming. Tony didn’t trust him.

So much time has passed, and yet, the wounds of never being enough still feel fresh.

Tony needs Pepper and Colonel Rhodes and the Avengers to keep him afloat. He’s told Peter on late-night star-watching on the roof of the compound in hushed whispers about how he’d be hopeless without Iron Man; how he’d have fallen right back into the same habits if Afghanistan had never happened and how he’s more on the inside than just a man in a suit.

Tony strives to fill a purpose in the universe that means something for humanity in the same fashion Peter does.

Can he trust Tony enough to not abandon a child he never wanted? Can Tony see past a person he don’t need? Will the hole that he locked behind chains and reinforced deadbolts ever be opened again?

There’s no boundaries anymore between too-fatherly and too closed off. Everything is blurred and he feels dizzy for the first time from the downpour.

Can he trust himself to keep this vicissitude together? He’s done it for so long after his parents’ deaths and Ben’s baleful end and he just wants this spinning to stop. He's grown up too soon and been the best version of himself and been responsible for fuck’s sake for May so she doesn’t lose her goddamn mind over what a fucking mental breakdown of a person he could turn out to be.

He’s made mistakes but, hell, he knows he’s tried harder than anyone to cease this eternal cycle of grief from destroying him and the people he loves.

There’s something spasmodic settling in his gut. He feels like a bolt from the blue, stirring havoc far, far away from the storm.

Was his life always meant to crumble like this? In the face of long odds, did his mother ever think of telling him the truth? Would she have denied it despite the science and her biology degrees? Would she be solemn or quiet and wait for Peter to enact his execrable kaleidoscope of emotions upon the universe? Or would she raise hell and stomp her feet in her inveterate desperation?

Really, what he's asking is simple; can he trust himself to be enough this time?

He’s festering and breaking into glass shards on the inside where it can’t be seem. He can’t tell Tony or May but he can’t see his life without them.

God, he really is cursed.

\------------------------------------  
It’s hours later and he’s deliberately missed two calls from May. Fucking forgive him for needing some space, but he can’t face her at the moment. She has his general location to know he’s still in Queens and usually knows how hard Ben’s anniversary is on him most years. Peter doubts she’d be as willing to give him space if she knew the real reason he’s not picking up. The sky is dark and the stars are peeking through the pollution of the Queens’.

The storm is still underneath his sweat but it’s resigned and his heart isn’t pounding out of his chest anymore. He’s somewhat back in control and more of himself but Peter is still unwilling to let it fully clear.

He’s just managed to clock some mugger on the side of his head with his web shooters as he dives down to ground level. He ends up falling onto his face and scraping his suit.

Spider-Man clambers to his feet briskly as the thief tries to rush past the victim with her purse; he’s halfway out of the exit that leads to a closed off condo complex when Peter throws himself forward and body slams him into the concrete wall. His shoulders ache and he can hear a few of his joints crack. He feels off-kilter. He’s uncoordinated and losing himself to his emotions and, fuck, this was not what he had planned for Ben’s anniversary.

The woman, at least in her thirties and with platinum blonde hair greying at the edges, is against the wall before she startles as the burglar slides to the ground, unconscious.

As Spider-Man stumbles to his feet and dusts himself off, his sixth sense crashes into his temple. He whips his head upwards and makes direct eye contact with the woman. Her eyes are a bright green, wide with alarm and her mouth is twitching.

It’s strange, she doesn’t have a coat on in this polar vortex across the East coast and is in all black. She’s slightly crouched in a offensive pose, like she’s going to attack, as he grabs her purse and tries to approach her carefully, hands splayed out in a surrender gesture. 

“Ma’am-` He tries to to say but he’s cut off. She yanks her purse out of his hands as she spins and sprints out of the passageway, onto the busy street. 

As Peter sees her disappear around the building, he notices a black earpiece that doubles as an earring as her hair goes flying from the wind. He hears the faint crackle of walkie-talkie-esque static and his Spider-sense still hasn’t eased up. He steps backwards into the alley and turns to face the criminal on the ground. He just needs a moment to catch his breath and then he can-

“Spider-Man.”

His sixth sense screams in distress as he whirls to face the voice. Now, the hairs on his arms are standing up straight. A man a few feet taller than him steps towards Spider-Man; he’s dressed in what looks like matted black SWAT gear and draws slowly towards him.

“What do you want?” Peter asks, wincing as his voice cracks just a little. God damn puberty.

“You’re going to have to come with me.”

“Why?” Spider-Man isn’t a threat to the country, and although he’s never signed the Accords, Peter knows the political climate surrounding mutants and enhanced people. He’s seen Ross’ comments and the general fear mongering rhetoric stoking doubt across the country. There are bumper stickers and flags strewn outside suburban houses and on cityscape balconies with from the Preservation and the Freedom of Human Species Network and guidance counselor-esque posters with ‘It’s 2019. Do You Know What Your Children Are?” plastered across the United States.

Spider-Man is deemed to be a threat and and an example of how superheroes continue to corrupt the world.

If it were down to Peter, he`d be more concerned about kids in high school using cocaine and how most civilians are threatened by the sheer number of supremacist hate groups, but what would a vigilante know?

“The Department of Defense would like to have a conversation about your place in the Sokovia Accords.” There’s something sly, disingenuous in the man’s voice and it makes Peter uneasy. Somehow, he doesn’t think this guy’s looking for just a conversation. It might have to do with the sniper laser he can feel trained on the back of his skull, but that’s just a hunch.

Now that he’s on high alert and everything is too heightened; his enhanced senses are picking up more footsteps on the rooftops above his head, people inhaling the night air on the fire escapes of the condos and the busy nightlife street behind the SWAT agent. There’s the quiet screech of tires against asphalt of military-grade vehicles trying to be stealthy about a block away and the click of the safety on a Barrett M82 being turned off coming from the balcony nearby. There’s too many for him to fight but they have all his possible escape routes covered. Shit. They know what they’re doing.

The man notices him looking and tilts his head as if considering a foolish child’s daydreams.. His ballistic helmet has a face guard but the semi-transparent glass shows heavy duty airsoft goggles and a tactical fire hood so Peter can't gauge his age. His voice is low and familiar, like someone’s he’s heard on Fox News. “We were hoping that there wouldn’t be a problem, but if you don’t cooperate, we will be authorized to use force.”

“Peter,” K.A.R.E.N. says quietly, “you seem to be outnumbered.”

“Yeah, you think?” It’s not her fault, he knows, but the last thing Peter needs right now is to be in more trouble. 

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuc-

“Might I suggest calling Mr Stark?”

A match is suddenly stuck underneath his skin and he can feel his blood vessels begin to constrict. The storm is taking over his ability to breathe and his muscles are beginning to stiffen at this chill in the air.

“No!” It’s way too soon to be dealing with his problems head-on. He’d rather stay in the storm for a little longer than face reality.

“Peter-”

“I said no, K.A.R.E.N.” He doesn’t need Tony. He doesn’t need Iron Man to fight his battles for him. He doesn’t need another bullshit gift from fate of a father; he’s lost enough of those already and isn’t grateful for destiny’s games anymore.

“Spider-Man.” He turns back to the man. “Last chance. We’d rather not hurt you.” The way the man’s hand twitches towards the AR-15 with a scope and silencer on his hip says otherwise.

It’s a dead end alleyway behind the superhero and he doesn’t have very many options. He glances behind the lead goon again; there are more men covering the entrance to the alley and they move forward silently, giving him a chance to escape if he jumps up the wall and rushes them. If he can get enough momentum, he can swing up a story or two and get out of the neighborhood faster than twenty men on foot can track him. 

His body moves before he can think about it, skipping up the wall and bouncing off it to land behind the men. He allows himself a grin as he runs: he’s fine! He doesn’t need Tony or even K.A.R.E.N. to tell him what to do. He’s independent and he’s not breaking at the seams, not at all.

He rounds the corner onto the street and Peter aims his wrist at a building further down the alley before the apartment. He just needs to get away from their trajectory, get onto a rooftop and he’ll be fine-

BANG!

Hot pain shoots through his upper arm and he drops the web he’s just shot with a yelp. It’s blazing, burning-

“Ow,” he hisses out between his teeth, because what the hell else can he say? “Ow, ow, fucking ow!”

There’s yelling behind him, shouts echoing off the brick and cement and he can distinctively detect at least fifteen heartbeats with his hearing, so Peter clenches his jaw and aims his left wrist upwards instead.

It’s clumsy and jerky, but he manages to swing and clamber to the top of a building. The evening breeze has picked up and he feels disheveled. The concrete beneath him is grainy and rough on his knees as he gets to his feet. He can feel it through the suit grinding into his shins. He grits his teeth and clutches his right arm; it’s sticky with blood, but he can feel that the bullet just clipped him. Still, it fucking hurts.

His shoulder feels off and he soon realizes that it’s not just dislocated. There’s a heavy pain saturated deep near his neck and something is definitely broken.

“Peter.” His A.I.’s tone is insistent and there’s a pleading note in her preprogrammed voice.

“Not now, K.A.R.E.N.”

“You’re injured. I have to inform Mr Stark.”

“K.A.R.E.N., ‘Snitches-Get-Stitches’ Protocol and go dark.”

He can almost hear her sigh. “Very well, Peter, but I recommend that you seek medical attention immediately.”

“Sure, sure.” Peter listens for any sign that the men are following him and can hear a helicopter’s choppers a little too close for comfort from his location. 

There’s a shuffle to his left and he pivots to see another operative is standing a few feet higher than him on the neighboring structure. The rooftops are level to each other and the agent is aiming down the barrel of his sniper rifle directly into his eye.

Peter breaks into a mad dash and zig-zags past the rain of bullets that hail towards him, jumping off the ledge of the building and onto a nearby skyscrapers. He can hear men cursing beneath their breaths and jumping off of fire escapes as he bolts behind ventilation units.

There are still men directly beneath him, a chopper in his peripheral vision and one man to his left, matching his pace and keeping in his direct line of vision with a gun. K.A.R.E.N. calls out as grenades and drones with electric bombs come near him. He’s managed not to get shot but Peter knows he can’t run forever.

He’s barely made it to Queensbridge Park alive when he realizes he has to make a decision. The helicopter is probably ready to shoot him down at a moment’s notice and the Queensborough Bridge is blocked off with a few SRT vehicles.

Something plunges into his stomach just as he hits the grass. All the wind is knocked out of his lungs and even the air starts to asphyxiate him. The explosive shock of pain causes him to buckle his knees and leave him gasping for air on the ground. He tries to take a few steps but can’t help but keep walking himself into a spiral on the mad ground. Spinning and spinning, the world never stops and Peter clasps his eyes closed for just a fucking second.

“Peter? Peter!” There’s a frantic voice coming through his ears that sounds like - oh, shit.

“Oh, shit.” He doesn’t really have a filter right now as he’s dying.

“Okay, that’s an answer. I’ll take it.”

For some reason - who is he kidding? He knows exactly why - Tony’s voice sends a shock of fiery rage shooting through him, almost hot enough to melt the snow from the blizzard earlier. “What do you want?”

“What do I wan- No, you do not get to do that right now, Spider-Man.’ The name sounds almost mocking and Peter can practically see Tony’s veins sticking out from the tension just from the phone call.

Stark thinks he knows everything that goes on in his head, every emotion and every wavelength. He’s probably seen how erratic Spider-Man has been tonight and already knows about Ben’s anniversary. It’s like he can sense the anger seeping from Peter’s fingertips and it isn’t fair that he has to choose right now.

“I’m fine.“ Peter is clenching his teeth through his words and it’s not just from the pain. He wants to punch a wall or scream right now. 

There’s a brief pause and then a short-tempered outburst of angry disbelief. “Peter, you have broken bones and a bullet insi-”

“I know that!” He snaps and he can hear a few of the men gasping for air as they hurdle up the stairs of the entrance behind him. “I don’t need help! I’m fucking fine.”

The vulgarity feels unfamiliar on his tongue towards his mentor.

There’s silence for a few moments and all Peter can hear is the static from the phone connection, his heartbeat pulsing too fast and his breaths coming out shallow and ragged.

“I’m coming to get you, stay where you are.” Tony’s tone holds no room for discussion but Peter doesn’t care.

“No. K.A.R.E.N., end call.” Before he can pass out, he shoots a web onto the nearby generating station and hoists himself up onto one of the cranes.

He can hear Tony’s sound of protest followed by what should be a blissful silence.

Isn’t this what he wanted. To be alone and independent for-fucking-ever? God, what if he did die like this and he never talked to Tony about this? Is this how his relationship is going to be until one of them dies? Angry and bitter? That’s never something Peter has wanted for the two of them and he honestly feels sick to his stomach. Is this going to be what breaks down his walls after so many years?

God, he’s so far from home and on the wrong side of Queens.

But this, he realizes, is the life he has. And really, what does he want to spend it doing? Hating? Regretting? Avoiding? Aching for something, anything that can be filled if he can muster the will to shove his ego out of the goddamn way?

He couldn’t muster up enough hate in his heart to despise Tony. He can’t do this but he can’t accept it and he’s walking on eggshells right now and fucking shit, fuc-.

The men are catching up to him, the vehicles are moving to cut off the Roosevelt Bridge, and Peter is so exhausted he could just pass out right now and not care if it means stopping his head from being so damn loud..

He hears the man’s voice from earlier out of a loudspeaker from one of the SRTs.

“It will be a lot easier for both of us if you come quietly, Spider-Man!”

Maybe it will. Peter’s too tired to argue at this point. So what if he goes to jail or the Raft? Maybe it will stop the never-ending storm inside him from erupting chaos everywhere he goes.

“It’s in everyone’s best interests, including your own.”

He turns his head at a very familiar noise.

“Ross.” There’s a loud blast of metal hitting the concrete attached to the crane Peter’s slumped on. Iron Man’s mechanical red and a stream of yellow light cuts into the pitch darkness of the sky and off from the footpad's jet exhaust. Tony’s robotic voice books no-nonsense and is absolutely livid as he raises his arms towards the chopper circling the two superheroes.

Fucking Ross, fucking Accords, fucking Mary Parker’s lies and D.N.A. tests, shit, shit shi-.

Peter rolls his eyes and lolls his head backward as he lets out a groan.

He can’t deal with this. For the first time in what feels like years, he feels so emotionally stunted that he loses all sense of judgement.

And so, Peter Parker jumps into the East River and passes out as he hits the below-freezing water.

It should speak for itself to know Peter would rather throw himself into the fucking freezing river than just accept fate's revelation about his true father.  
\----------------------  
Rain beats down on the ground like the crackles of an fresh fire pit. Muddy water floods around his shoes towards the sewers. He can feel his socks soaked in cold and how half of the fabric sticks to his toes in a measly attempt to insulate them.

It's a cataclysm and the catalyst from the sky never wavers.

His arms are in front of his face, trying to seek shelter, and the thunder is so loud he can’t even hear his own heartbeat. He can feel his stomach drop into his frostbitten toes. He’s been walking down the same street for hours and there’s no sign of the weather letting up.

At first, he could turn to anger and this newfound powerful feeling but it’s scaring him. He should face his problems

There’s a crash and an explosion a few feet from him. As he tries to turn towards the commotion, his arms flail around his figure. He feels heat and he throws himself a few feet from the middle of the street. Where he was standing is a yard away from a lamppost that is unexpectedly smited by the sky. At first it’s white light, but in a fraction of a moment, it turns to a brassy red, ablaze with fire, and the sky is a purplish blue. It all happens in half of a second. The heat is overpowering and Peter feels like every cell in his body has been electrocuted. Just like that, it’s gone and smoke plumes off the base as it falls to the cold concrete in broken pieces of glass and steel.

He’s so close to being stricken by the same lightning he’s hiding behind and he’s flying too close to the sun. The downpour is blaring in his ears, drowning out the rain and all sensation, and he can feel the blood rushing through his veins.

This isn’t home. This isn’t safe.

He needs to get out before he dies and he can’t turn to this fucking natural disaster everytime shit hit the motherfucking fan.

He was wrong about the storm.

A dense fog is in the edges of his vision and the streetlights are dim. What should be a bright orange from the lampposts almost looks like a bruised purple. There’s a whine in the distances of the wind screaming a high-pitched hymn. He doesn’t register time or direction; he’s caught in the middle of the tempest.

And then, a flash that drowns out every sensation in his body. He’s too close to getting striked by a bolt. Peter hunches down a bit and covers his ears, waiting for the inevitable clap of thunder.

But it never comes.

The wind is shifting and, suddenly, this isn’t Peter’s safe haven anymore. His clothes are drenched and his face is unfeeling but this is different. The sky is turning from the traditional grey-blueish-black to something red and orange. The clouds are black and fog is engulfing everything in his sight, not just his peripheral of the distance. It’s not just rain but crisp leaves from trees and deadened branches flying in his face as he flails in the wind for control. An electricity pole suddenly collapses a few feet away from him, sparks from the lightning erupting in flames. 

And then the rain seems to turn into embers and almost ash. Spirals of charred pieces of cardboard still half lit and thin pieces of kindling that dissipate into nothing but black flitter from the sky and down to the ground. There’s still rain, yet-

The world he’s built and turned to is on fire. 

\-----------

When Peter opens his eyes, he’s absolutely soaking wet and on lying down on some medical table. There's a vivid sensation of heat encasing his body and some of the water droplets adorning his body are sliding down his figure slowly or evaporating. He can blearily see a blood bag to hsi side and an I.V. stuck into his right arm. He’s still wearing his suit when a voice cuts into his thoughts and he remembers the previous few hours.

“Look who's awake,” Tony’s voice is flat as he comes into view with a downturned sort of twist to his mouth. He looks like he’s been woken up in the middle of the night - and yeah, maybe Peter was patrolling later than usual - with an AC/DC t-shirt and a pair of sweats accompanied with dark undereye bags and a glare in his eyes.

Peter almost would have preferred to see Ross.

Removing the bullet is almost as exhausting as being shot in the first place despite the pain allieviers. Tony gets to work removing the ammunition whole, disinfecting the wound and starts threading stitches into his arm after several minutes of silence. He can feel his broken bones get corrected and snap back into place without warning as he lets out as choked sound. His mentor doesn’t say anything, just disposes of his gloves and asks F.R.I.D.A.Y. for his vitals. Peter’s posture is tense and he doesn’t look at Tony in the eyes.

He knows he’s in the medical quarters of Tony's lab at the compound but the over looming sense of dread is a bit more preoccupying at the moment.

After all is said and done, Peter gently slumps against the table, steels himself with a breath and closes his eyes. The pain has subdued and he can already feel his healing factor starting to do its thing.

“So why didn’t you tell me about this, then?” Tony demands as Peter rips his eyes open. “If we do this, Parker, we have to trust each other. I want the truth now: are you okay?”

He hates to even consider the notion that he can just trust Tony, like it’s that fucking simple, embedded in the belief that Tony will walk away from his life again at the drop of a pin.

“I'm fine,” he responds, trying to sit up as his ribs protest in agony. Tony’s hand is on his chest in an instant, shoving him back down with a little more brutish force than necessary.

Tony’s face is hard and he grits his teeth. “That’s not what I meant, Parker. You’ve been aggressive towards civilians all afternoon and your vitals have been all over the place. You know better then to keep shit from me and not call for backup.”

Peter’s eyes are wide and he can feel the storm threatening to resurface. But he can't. He can’t keep giving into this rage. If he keeps going like this, the world will disappear and he’ll be swept away by the rain or struck by lightning. 

There’s a few aching moments of silence

“I asked you for an answer, Peter.”

“Did you know?” The words are out before Peter can stop them, laced with resentment and betrayal and who knows what else. They hang suspended in the air between them, unable to be taken back; Peter is on the edge of a precipice and he doesn’t know what comes after the fall but he knows he’s going to hate it.

“Know what? That Ross would come after you?” Tony scoffs with strident annoyance. “I had hoped he wouldn’t be dumb enough to try. That doesn’t explain the matter you’re evading. Don’t even get me started on how irresponsible an-”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Peter’s voice is monotone and is staring directly into Tony’s brown eyes. The longer he stares, the more he sees the resemblance from his nose and face shape. It’s eerie. 

“Then… I don’t know what you’re talking about.” There’s something in his tone, guarded and afraid behind the obvious fury. Peter is letting on more than he’s saying and Tony feels like he’s in the dark, searching his bastard child’s eyes for explanation.

He could backtrack now, pretend it never happened. It would be Peter’s storm only – yes, Tony might know, but he’ll never know that Peter knows. Tony would never have to admit to having a child he never wanted and Peter could forget his own father that wishes he doesn’t exist.

He could run and keep running until his lungs and legs give out, and even then, he could find an escape route.

Or… maybe he really doesn’t know and Peter is about to crack his world right open. Tony Stark doesn’t want a kid. Tony Stark doesn’t need a kid. Who the hell is Peter Parker to interrupt his life like that? To open a door that’s closed for a reason?

But in the end, he knows; he’s never been able to hide from his hero, especially when he’s as verklempt like this.

“Did you know about the D.N.A. test?” His voice is clear and his mentor’s face morphs into one of confusion in his line of sight.

“What D.N.A. test? The hell is going on with you, Peter? You’re acting like- I don’t even know!”

Stark’s voice continues and reverberates around the sickly white walls like music but Peter can’t hear anything except the pounding headache teetering in the front of his mind. So he doesn’t know, Peter’s mouth sets into a grim line at the realization. His fingernails subconsciously dig into his skin. He’ll never know.

The storm washes back and threatens once again to wash him away. There’s an anger and an abrasive heat smoldering and rotting inside where lightning has struck. A mark or brand of the insecurity and baggage he’ll have to carry for the rest of his life

He realizes now that the street he has been walking down for so long must end at some point. Peter is still being battered by the flurry of torrential downpour and he feel the wind starting to pick up. The gale rolls through this dead-end town like great waves in the ocean, ripples grazing over grass and layers of debris. Streams of water rush down from the branches and down the trunks as it drenches him. 

He's never admitted it, but being in an eternal storm is exhausting.

Would Ben be betrayed? Would his upbringing and childhood still mean anything if Peter finally fucking admits to his lineage?

Would the curse be broken if he truly accepted Tony as his father? No strings attached, no locks or chains or doubts or almost sons or barely keeping it together. 

Just, tried and true, all emotional and baggage included.

Even if the man in the Iron Man suit doesn't accept it or welcome it, at least Peter will have. Even if they end up estranged or strangers, Peter knows that he won't have anything else to lose in these natural disasters.

Regardless of the outcome, regardless if May leaves him homeless and afraid and regardless that he may lose the man he's looked up to for so long, one thing is clear; he won't lose himself to this endless cycle of loss anymore.

He'll be fine alone. It's how he has survived up until now.

‘-ter. Peter!” His eyes snap back to the present and Tony looks troubled, eyebrows furrowed and mouth set in a grim line as he nearly yells at his protegé. “You're not getting out of this that easy! Do you understand m-!”

This is it, he realizes as he takes a deep breath in. This could either be the start of everything he had ever wished for or the end of everything he had tried to avoid loving. 

“You're my biological father.” Peter's voice rings clear through the edge of hysteria he bordering on.

Maybe Peter expected an outburst or a rambling denial but that last thing he anticipated was silence.

“What?” The switch in Tony's cross composure is instantaneous. Tony's eyes are wide and he looks like he's been electrocuted as it seems a new set of wrinkles have cemented into his smile lines and forehead. “What are you talki-”

“The D.N.A. test on Bruce's files, I'm your son- real son, I mean.”

“I-” For the first time, he sees the rarity of Tony Stark at a loss for words as his posture goes rigid and his eyes scan his kid's face wildly, searching for clues or answers.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y.?” Tony's question is clipped and curt. Miraculously, the A.I. doesn't say anything as the same screen that Peter feverishly hacked into appears. It feels like years ago that he found out the truth, not merely twelve hours.

The blue glare is hypnotic even though Peter can only see the text backwards. It makes his eyes burn slightly from the combinations of his injuries and his current predicament. Tony's breath hitches as he sees Mary Fitzpatrick's face in the bottom right quadrant of the projection surrounded by D.N.A loci, percentages and graphs.

Peter can’t help but roll his eyes despite the severity of the situation and bristles, ”Is that enough of an answer for you, Mr. Stark?”

The formality is a low blow and doesn't have whatever effect Peter's thunderstorm was hoping for. Animosity flashes in his mentor's figure and Tony is in front of his face in an instant. “Have you always known? Is this a freaking game to you, Pete?”

“I hacked into F.R.I.D.A.Y. and only found out yesterday afternoon.” It takes every ounce of willpower Peter can muster to ignore the urge to leap out of his skin, courtesy of his Spidey-sense, and avoid jumping out of the goddamn window.

There's silence for a whole minute and Peter's inhalations are still heavy from the adrenaline and ‘fight or flight’ reflex.

Tony's eye twitches and his face contorts into as he grinds his teeth and scrunches his face.

He honestly looks likes he's about to punch someone or blast a repulsor jet into the wall. He's running one hand through his hair, the same way Peter does during Decathlon competitions, and the other is resting on his chest, over his reactor, as he inhales rippling up breaths against his torso and tensley shuddering through his exhales in overloaded panic.

Peter can feel a hysteric panic attack blossoming at the base of his skull but his mentor cuts in at the exact moment he can feel his world crumbling in the echoes of an earthquake. The black around the edges of his vision suddenly halts and Tony has one hand massaging his left temple.

“Why didn't you just tell me? You were supposed to trust me.” Tony's eyes are hard and ablaze with anger but there's something in his voice that sounds bewildered and just sad; it’s a few gasping breaths away from almost desperate, possibly.

Peter scoffs and lets out a humorless laugh, “Yeah, well, we both know how that ended up last time.”

Tony grits his teeth and bites out a restrained sounding, “This isn't last time. We’ve both changed. I thought… I thought that…” 

Tony trails off and heaves out a sigh as his eyes momentarily stop from piercing into Peter's to the I.V. bag. It's a gesture that's shaky at best and sounds half like a sob.

After a beat, Tony relaxes his clenched fists and says with a forced airiness to his voice, “This isn't exactly how I imagined finding out that I'd be paying child support.”

“I know you don't want kids and that's fine, I don't expect you to like it but I can't fucking lie like this to you and pretend it's okay anymore,” He's rambling because he's nervous - fuck, he's not starting to cry, okay? He's not breaking down right now during one of the most emotional moments of his life- “because I've been pretending that it doesn't fuck me up on the inside for so long and rearrange my guts, I don'-”

Tony is standing with his mouth slightly ajar, his eyes crinkled with incredulousness and he blinks several times slowly before interrupting Peter with a choked off, “The fuck, Peter?”

He shuts up stiffly and eyes his father icely cynical, “I don't unders-”

“Did you think I was going to just throw you out? That it'd be that damn simple?!” There's a beat as Tony clears his throat and then, “God, I know what shit I've said in the past but I'm not that person anymore.” 

Peter opens his mouth to say something, anything that might fuel some anger or sadness inside him but he comes up short. He should be ready to fight, he knows the first strike is coming, and yet, he's frozen and speechless. He isn't totally sure but he knows he doesn’t want to hear what is going to come of Tony’s mouth next. 

But before he can say anything, Tony continues in a frustrated frenzy. “I know I'm not great with kids, but … Shit, Peter…” He trails off as he catches sight of the tears the boy doesn't notice slowly trickling down Peter’s cheeks. “Come here.” Tony holds out his arms invitingly and Peter hesitates.

Is this some fucking game? A trick? He didn't ever expect this but he's prepared for the rug to be pulled out from under his feet or this all to be some elaborate prank and he doesn't know how much longer he can take being so stubborn and headstrong while not cr-

“Peter,” Tony's voice is softer now, heavy with invitation and laced with the same exhaustion Peter's dealt from the numbness in his fingers from the blizzard and the wet socks’ residue from the storm.

He doesn't even notice his body moving subconsciously but one second he's leaning on the cold steel table and the next he's up on his feet, despite the catheter and soreness of his shoulder, and collapsing into his mentor. 

As Peter clutches onto Tony for dear life, he begins to let out tiny sobs into his chest. Tony holds one hand around his shoulders and one at the back of his hair, shushing him and mumbling, “It's okay, it's alright, you're okay,” into his head.

Jesus, he's not supposed to be a mess like this, Christ almighty.

“I was so scared after my parents died and then Ben, too,” Peter's throat is hoarse and he can still feel a reluctance in his bones to lay his life out there for Iron Man to see. “I just didn't think you or May would want some fucked up kid who's not really yours and I-”

Tony’s tone is sharp as he cuts into Pete's monologue and tight with hurt as his grip tightens on his child's shoulder, “Dont, just- don't say things like that, kid.” He can hear his father's breathing get jittery and, to his horror, on the brink of tears.

“I just- With Ben and Mary and May, I'm-” There's a deep confusion in his tone that screams for comfort but Tony is smiling sadly when he pulls his face from his hero's chest.

“Christ, I'm not going to ever let you doubt how much you mean to me.” There's a crisp sincerity in every syllable. 

The tears don't stop and Peter finally breaks down the walls he's been fortifying for years. The dam floods and he's got his heart tattooed on his sleeve, insecurities and laments for Tony to see. He's as transparent as a magnifying glass and as open as a book.

Tony mumbles into his hair, “These mountains you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb, my little spider,” and that's when Peter truly falls to pieces, heavy and shaky tremors and ugly crying with mucus and he's probably ruining Tony's favorite shirt, Jesus.

Peter is broken but he realizes that he's no longer breakable.

He's not an orphaned kid who needs to play make-believe to deal with his reality anymore.

He doesn't have to do this alone.  
\----------

When May Parker finally finds out that night, she's home from her late-night shift and eating out of a tub of Ben & Jerry's in front of the T.V. She grabs Peter by his arms and hugs him as carefully as she did the first night she met him, crying for comfort and ever so fragile.

“Oh, baby,” She sighs tearfully and Peter doesn't comprehend how he ever thought she would kick him out or how he ever lived without her. “That's not what family means, Peter. I am always going to be yours, not because I'm being forced to or because of Ben,” She breathes in, staring herself, before slowly relaxing her tense shoulders, “but because I love you more than any damn D.N.A. test can tell me. You’ve always been my family because you're mine, not mine because of family.”

Slowly, Peter feels the knot in his gut loosen. The two most important people in his life are going to stay. Nothing his ever lingering insecurity did could convince him otherwise. He wouldn’t have to be alone anymore. 

In the (or perhaps later that) morning of the next day, when Peter lets his aunt know of his guilt of erasing Ben and Richard, she slaps the back of his head.

She pulls her head off of his shoulder as they eat cereal on the sofa to stare into his eyes. “It doesn't make them any less of a part of your life. It doesn't make you strangers. It just means you have a bigger family, now.”

There's the same fierceness and dedication he's known growing up in her eyes; only now, he sees something new; intertwined in the glow that was present when Ben was around and the glint of the promised threat of May's wrath at any pain the world may cause her is something warm and solid. It reminds him of home and of family. For the first time, Peter sees something stable and calm in May's eyes.

He eases back into May's embrace and smiles. As they break apart, she scuttles to the kitchen to wipe the makeup from her face from running and Peter just giggles as they settle into the couch to watch Tony Stark give a press conference about his newfound biological son.

“I still don't like him. Peter Parker suites you better than Stark.” May mutters under her breath and Peter belly laughs for the rest of the day, feeling weightless and happy for what seems like the first time in forever.

Nothing really changes dramatically on the outside, but the inside is calmer and all that's left are beach waves instead of blizzards.

\------------

The natural disasters in his life don't break Peter Parker.

The earthquake robs security, the blizzard steals trust and the storm nabs all reason.

But what comes out of these forces of nature are strangers uniting and the chance for nature to restore its balance.

It's the chance for a clean slate and the knowledge that the best is yet to come.

In the end, the sun is shining despite the clouds that line the edges and the golden warmth has never felt so wonderful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come hide with me in the comments🙈  
> 10000 words later and it's here *ducks away from booing crowd"  
> So many late nights spent reading Wikipedia pages on the science of what storms do to your body, how lightning works and how DNA works.  
> This is pretty well written (but I'm very biased and proud of the imagery, don't @ me)  
> I'm kind of emotional over this ending  
> My betas are magical. Make sure to leave them lots of love. Thank you, dears. You mean the world to me.  
> I hate myself for taking so long but my health is doing a lot better.  
> Why does every fic I write have an injury scene?  
> Anger is something I dealt with a lot years ago so the storm was something I needed to take my time to write.  
> Thank you for the love. Really, it's amazing.  
> Go read Bah Humbug, blind hope or Fireplaces by me because angst is important.  
> I need to go sleep for a few days and hibernate.  
> Stay safe and don't bottle your emotions.  
> Laters,  
> Reshma ✌

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Fireplaces and Marshamallows](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17498816) by [Reshma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reshma/pseuds/Reshma)




End file.
